In this special episode, we sat down with Bruce Jones, senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and author of “To Rule the Waves: How Control of the World’s Oceans Shapes the Fate of the Superpowers.” He sheds light on how, in history, naval power translated to world power, how that’s playing out now between the United States and China, and how the cold reaches of the Arctic are becoming the next geopolitical flash point.
Jones said: “It’s very striking when you look back at the history of empires in the modern period. And what you see is that for most of the last several hundred years, the state or empire or nation that was able to most successfully dominate world affairs was the state or nation or empire that had the largest and most effective navy in the world. For a brief period, that was the Portuguese. For a long period, it was the British. Over the last 100 years or so, it’s been the United States. And it matters because so much of world trade moves by the oceans. So much of how we live our lives is shaped by commerce across and underneath the oceans. Just think about digital communications, which is central to everything we do now—modern finance, modern social media, everything else. Ninety-three percent of all data in the world moves on undersea cables. About 85 percent of world trade moves by ocean-going containership and bulk carrier. So if you can dominate the world’s oceans, it really gives you an extraordinary influence on global affairs.”…