[Admiral James Stavridis, Sea Power. The History and Geopolitics of the World's Oceans. Penguin Press. New York City, 2017. 363 pages]

January 19, 2018

review / Iñigo Bronte Barea [English version].

In the era of globalization and its communication society, where everything is closer and distances seem to fade away, the body of water between continents has not lost the strategic value it has always had. Historically, the seas have been both a channel for human development and instruments of geopolitical domination. It is no coincidence that the great world powers of the last 200 years have in turn been great naval powers. The dispute over maritime space is still going on today and there is nothing to suggest that the geopolitics of the seas will cease to be crucial in the future.

These principles on the importance of maritime powers have changed little since they were set out at the end of the 19th century by Alfred T. Mahan. Their relevance is reflected today in Sea Power. The History and Geopolitics of the World's Oceans, by Admiral James G. Stavridis, who retired in 2013 after leading the U.S. Southern Command, the U.S. European Command and the supreme command of NATO.

The book is precisely the result of Mahan's early reading and a long degree program of almost four decades traveling the seas and oceans with the U.S. Navy. At the beginning of each explanation of the different marine spaces, Stavridis relates his brief experience in that sea or ocean, and then continues with the history, and the development they have had, until arriving at their current context. Finally, there is a projection of the near future of the world from the perspective of marine geopolitics.

Pacific: the emergence of China

Admiral J. G. Stavridis begins his journey through the Pacific Ocean, which he categorizes as "the mother of all oceans" due to its immensity, since it alone is larger than the entire land surface of the planet combined. Another remarkable point is that in its immensity there is no considerable land mass, although there are islands all over the world subject, with very diverse cultures. That is why the sea dominates the geography of the Pacific as it does nowhere else on the planet.

The great dominator of this marine space is Australia, which is very attentive to what might happen politically in the island archipelagos in its vicinity. However, it was the Europeans who explored the Pacific well (Magellan was the first, around 1500) and tried to connect it with their world in a way that was not merely transitory and commercial, but stable and lasting.

The United States began to be present in the Pacific from the acquisition of California (1840), but it was not until the annexation of Hawaii (1898) that the immense country was definitively catapulted into the Pacific. The first time this ocean emerged as a total war zone was in 1941 when Pearl Harbor was massacred by the Japanese.

With the return of peace, the Japanese revival and the emergence of China, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong caused trans-Pacific trade to overtake the Atlantic for the first time in the 1980s, and this trend is still continuing. This is because the Pacific region contains the world's major powers on its shores.

At area geopolitics, a major degree program arms race is underway in the Pacific, with North Korea as a major focus of tension and uncertainty worldwide.

Atlantic: from the Panama Canal to NATO

As for the Atlantic Ocean, Stavridis refers to it as the cradle of civilization, since the Mediterranean is included among its territories, and even more so if we consider it as the nexus between the peoples of all America and Africa with Europe. It has two great seas of great historical importance, the Caribbean and the Mediterranean.

Undoubtedly the historical figure of this ocean is Christopher Columbus, since his arrival in America (Bahamas 1492) initiated a new historical period that ended with practically the entire American continent being colonized by the European powers in the following centuries. While Portugal and Spain concentrated on the Caribbean and South America, the British and the French did so in North America.

During the First World War, the Atlantic became an essential transit zone for the war development , since it was through the Atlantic that the United States took its troops, war materials and goods to Europe during the conflict. It was here that the idea of a community of Atlantic countries began to take shape, which would eventually lead to the creation of NATO.

As for the Caribbean, the author considers it as a region settled in the past. Its colonization was characterized by the arrival of slaves to exploit the region's natural resources for purposes of economic interest to the Spaniards. In turn, this process was characterized by the desire to convert the indigenous population to Christianity.

The Panama Canal is a driving force for the region's Economics , but Central America is also sailing along the coasts of the countries with the highest violence fees on the planet. Admiral Stavridis sees the Caribbean coast as a kind of Wild West, which in some places has evolved little since the days of the pirates, and where drug cartels now operate with impunity.

Since the 1820s, with the Monroe Doctrine, the United States carried out a series of interventions through its navy to reinforce regional stability and keep Europeans out of places such as Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Central America. In the 20th century, politics was dominated by caudillos, and soon communism and the Cold War came with them to the Caribbean, with Cuba as ground zero.

Indian Ocean and Arctic: from unknown to risky

The Indian Ocean has less history and geopolitics than the other two major oceans. Despite this, its tributary seas have gained geopolitical importance in the post-World War II era with the rise of global shipping and the export of oil from the Gulf region. The Indian could be seen today as a region for wielding smart power rather than hard power. While the slave trade and piracy have dwindled almost to extinction almost everywhere, they are still present in parts of the Indian Ocean. It is a region where countries around the world could collaborate together to fight these common problems.

The history of the Indian Ocean does not inspire confidence about the potential for peaceful governance in the years to come. An important core topic to unlock the region's potential would be to resolve the existing conflicts between India and Pakistan (a conflict with the risk of using nuclear weapons) and the Shiite-Sunni divide in the Persian Gulf, issues that make it a very volatile region. Due to the tensions in the Gulf countries, the region is today a kind of cold war between the Sunnis, led by Saudi Arabia, and the Shiites, led by Iran, and between these two sides, the United States, with its Fifth Fleet, is at the center.

Finally, the Arctic is currently an unknown quantity. Stavridis sees it as both a promise and a danger. Over the centuries, all oceans and seas have been the site of epic battles and discoveries, but there is one exception: the Arctic Ocean.

It seems clear that that exceptionality is coming to an end. The Arctic is an emerging maritime frontier with increasing human activity, rapidly melting blocks of ice and major hydrocarbon resources coming within reach. However, there are major risks that will dangerously condition the exploitation of this region, such as weather conditions, unclear governance due to the confluence of five bordering countries (Russia, Norway, Canada, the United States and Denmark), and geopolitical competition between NATO and Russia, whose relations have been deteriorating in recent years.