MM#376--Navigating Maritime Supremacy: How Sea Power Shapes Global Dynamics

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Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life.

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Now here's your host, david Kaiser.

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Hello, I am David and welcome back to another Mojo Minute.

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As is our custom, let's begin with our opening quote.

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I came to understand the influence of the sea on geopolitics, and it's no coincidence that so many of the great national enterprises of the past 2,000 years were influenced by sea power, and that continues to be true today.

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The sea is one, indeed, particularly as a geopolitical entity, and will continue to exert enormous influence on how global events unfold, from the high tension of the South China Sea to the cocaine smuggling of the Caribbean, to the piracy off the coast of Africa, to the unfortunate re-emergence of a new Cold War in the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap in the North Atlantic.

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Some observers may not be interested in the geopolitics of the oceans, but they will haunt our policy and our choices in this turbulent 21st century.

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Oceans will matter deeply to every aspect of the human endeavor.

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When we go to sea, whether in a warship for a nine-month combat cruise, or a week on a carnival cruise liner, or just sail a day out of sight of land, we are launching ourselves into another dimension altogether.

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The world shudders and shakes beneath us.

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The wind cuts more sharply, with nothing to slow its pace.

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The weather skims by our unprotected hull, the dolphins sometimes swim alongside of us for hours.

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It's a very different world.

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In a primal sense, we are an ocean away Every time we go to sea and can no longer see the land.

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When you are on a hull, however large or small, and come up on the deck and slowly pivot around to see nothing but the ocean stretching away from you, stop and measure the moment in the passage of your life.

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And measure the moment in the passage of your life.

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You're seeing the same view, the same endless ocean that Alexander the Great saw as he sailed the eastern Mediterranean, that Napoleon gazed upon on his long, sad voyage to exile in the South Atlantic and that Halsey saw as he lashed his first fast carrier task force into combat in the western Pacific.

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In that sense, as a sailor, you are at once an ocean away from the world of the land, but also connected to a long, unbroken chain of men and women who have set their course for the open ocean, and the open ocean it was Now.

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This quote comes to us from a book titled Sea Power the History and Geopolitics of the World's Oceans, by Admiral James Stavridis.

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It was published in 2017.

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And I found the book fascinating for several reasons.

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Now, stavridis has extensive experience as a naval officer and as the former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO.

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So his opinions are quite respected and we'll get back to more on the details in the book shortly.

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But I had to stop myself and ask the question.

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Over the last I don't know some 500 years, the world has been dominated by sea power.

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Is that changing or remaining the same?

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Well, let's take a look back in history.

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The major maritime powers over the last 500 years were first the Portuguese Empire from the 15th and 16th centuries, then the Spanish Empire in the following centuries 16th and 17th then the Dutch Republic held it for a little bit in the mid-17th century, and then the British Empire in the 18th through the 20th centuries and the United States from the 20th century onward till today.

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So I was just beginning to connect those dots.

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And Sea Power, our book of the day, combined with our previous book that we've covered Ray Dalio's the Principles for Dealing with a Changing World Order.

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Both approach the global dynamics and geopolitics from different angles.

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Sea Power, our current book of the day, from actual naval power and then the Principles, and then the principles from Ray Dalio, from a global trade power or maybe an economic power.

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So there were several connections between both of these books that I wanted to explore, especially to understand the geopolitical dynamics that we're seeing happen today.

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Stavritis examines how control the seas influences global power structures.

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Dalio analyzes it in broader historical patterns of the rising and the falling of those world powers, powers that were built on large, growing economies.

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Stavritis draws on naval history to explain the modern maritime issues.

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And then Dalio examines the last 500 years of economic and political cycles to identify patterns which we just touched on.

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And then, finally, both authors stressed the need for nations to adapt to changing circumstances.

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Stressed the need for nations to adapt to changing circumstances.

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Stavritis highlights the evolving nature of maritime challenges and the law of the sea control, and then Dalio emphasizes the adaptability is crucial for nations to succeed in a changing world order on the economic side.

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So again, this was fascinating, fascinating, and I love connecting the dots between both of those authors.

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Now back to our book of the day Sea Power.

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The book is organized, as a general overview, into chapters that focus on the major bodies of water Pacific Ocean, atlantic Ocean, indian Arctic Oceans, mediterranean Sea, south China Sea, caribbean Sea and each chapter delves into the historical significance and contemporary geopolitical challenges associated with all these regions.

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What I found fascinating was Stavritis discusses how control over these oceans have historically influenced global power and how they continue to shape our international relations today.

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And you got to remember, just like we learned from Dalio's book, the British dominated the seas for our last significant period spanning over the last century.

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You know, the era of British naval supremacy begins after the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, and it continues until the outbreak of World War I in 1914, so roughly about 105, 110 years.

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And often our history books will talk about this as Pax Britannica, or it would be said that Britannia rules the waves.

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And naval supremacy allowed Britain to do many things, but number one is it allowed it to be almost uncontested in terms of a maritime and economic power over the world's oceans.

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It allowed it to expand and protect its vast colonial empire.

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It allowed it to dominate global trade.

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This is a key connecting of the dots.

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Also, it allowed it to project its military power around the globe and it also played a significant role in ending the slave trade for its operations over the six decades from 1808 to 1867.

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So by the end of the 19th century, the British Empire comprised nearly one-third I'm sorry one-quarter, rather one-quarter, of the world's land surface and more than one-quarter of its total population.

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And then, beginning in the early 20th century, particularly with the rise of other naval powers like Germany and the United States, britain's influence and power on those global maritime affairs began to wane.

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Like I said, this book was fascinating, but I want to share a piece of the Admiral's writing, just so you can kind of understand how he writes and his viewpoints.

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Check out this maritime history.

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It's about the Pacific Ocean and its history In terms of naval strategy.

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The Japanese, unsurprisingly, began to think like Great Britain, like the British, they were an island nation hanging off the coast of a huge continent and they worried about China and Russia, the great land powers continent.

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And they worried about China and Russia, the great land powers, because Korea was essentially a strip of a buffer zone between themselves and the Chinese.

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It became logical in their eyes that they should dominate and hold it as a means of putting space between themselves and the vastly larger Chinese empire.

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This led to the first of two important wars for Japan, both which had significant naval components the Sino-Japanese War of 1894.

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It began when the Japanese Navy attacked a Chinese troop convoy heading to reinforce Chinese troops in Korea Before war was declared, by the way, demonstrating the propensity to seize on surprise that they would again use five decades later in attacking the United States at Pearl Harbor.

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The war was short and sharp, and Japanese naval forces comported themselves very well.

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Of note, the naval tactical debate of the period was about whether massive armor or heavy guns were more important and most important in maritime combat, and the Battle of Yalu did not clearly demonstrate the superiority of either.

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What did emerge was the efficacy of using maneuverability and speed, as the Japanese did under Admiral Tsukiyaki Ito.

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He split his force into a quote flying squadron of fast ships and a slower but still capable main squadron, and he was able to make and rake the Chinese ships throughout the engagement with more rapid fire from faster ships.

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Over the next few months, the war became a rout and ended in 1895 with Japan consolidating its possession of Korea, formosa and various other islands.

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In terms of geostrategic position, japan was in the driver's seat in the eastern Pacific.

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Now it needed to shore up its northern flank, which led to war with Russia, and this is where it gets interesting.

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The final blow to Russia in the Pacific came when the Baltic squadron was destroyed in May 1905 at the Battle of Shushumaya, losing 50 of the 53 ships that had sailed from the Baltic beginning in October of the previous year, faced with the complete loss of their fleet, the Russians were forced to settle the war in an agreement negotiated by the US President, theodore Roosevelt, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

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The Russians lost the war because they were outfought tactically in each engagement, but mainly because they failed strategically to concentrate their forces and were defeated piecemeal.

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This, by the way, constituted a critical lesson for the United States on the importance of building the Panama Canal.

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Otherwise the US fleet would be essentially separated for months by the necessity to sail around the southern tip of South America to combine its forces.

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So we have the critical importance of the need of the Panama Canal.

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So there's a nugget of wisdom for us.

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But we further read about the importance of technology improvements.

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Let's go back to the book.

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Technology improvements.

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Let's go back to the book.

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So much of the Navy's mental map begins at Pearl Harbor and opens out from there to the endless distances of the ocean.

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So it was fitting and shattering at the same time to be attacked without warning in early December 1941, as war came to the United States.

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In order to understand the severity and the totality of the Pacific theater of World War II, you need to imagine the vast scale of the region and pair it with the fact that, for the first time in history, military operations would cover the far reaches of the Pacific, north of the equator and a good distant south.

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As the late William Manchester illustrates clearly in his excellent biography of five-star general of the Army, douglas MacArthur, american Caesar.

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The area of operations covered mileage equivalent to that of the English Channel to the Persian Gulf, of the English Channel to the Persian Gulf, twice the farthest conquest of Alexander Caesar or Napoleon.

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A comparison the ego-driven general would have enjoyed that vast emptiness which had taken out rigor, canoes, decades and steamships.

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Months to cross could now be transversed in weeks.

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Technology just did not increase the power of ships, but it added new dimensions to war.

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Above the water, aircraft and radar alerted the calculus of range.

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Below the surface, submarines could menace military ships and civilian shipping alike with no or little warning.

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The Pacific Ocean's first experience as an arena of total war came at a time when war at sea was suddenly profoundly different from ages past.

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Now we just passed the anniversary of December 7th 1941, where the United States was surprised and the US Navy was surprised and had to begin to think completely anew of what the world was that they were looking out upon, and not to fight the last war, because frankly, that was the last war, but, more importantly, to change mindsets and to fight the upcoming next war, these new dimensions of war that we just read about.

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And now we are seeing something quite similar.

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We're seeing a bubbling up in the same Pacific Ocean of a hotspot, almost to the point of a sunspot of intensity, with the rise of China as a maritime superpower and the US trying to hold on to its place.

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What does it mean, and what could it mean, for China to possibly blockade and take over Taiwan?

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Well, a Chinese blockade or takeover of Taiwan could have serious, serious ripple effects around the world.

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On the geopolitical side, it would shake up power dynamics in the Asian Pacific region.

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It would certainly threaten regional stability.

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It would put democracy and human rights in a vital spotlight.

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Economically, it would throw the global supply chains into massive chaos.

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It would hit trade, especially in that whole region, very, very hard.

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It would scare off foreign investors, surely, and it would destabilize the whole region's economy, from Australia to Japan, to India, to the Philippines.

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Now, admiral Stravitas highlights several key points regarding China's rise as a naval power, with some recommendations.

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So let's hear from him in his book.

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After putting all of this together, what is the right US strategy for the South China Sea?

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Can it be separated from our thinking about the broader Pacific Ocean and the world ocean for that matter?

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What would BEHAN tell us about its importance in our approach?

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While it is impossible to pull out a single sea from the whole of the oceans and develop a global strategy based upon it, the South China Sea is unique in its geopolitical significance.

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Here, resources, great and powerful maritime states and critical sea lanes of communication converge in the most populous region of the world.

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The United States must retain a presence here.

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There are several ways we can do this.

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We should maintain a network of bases and access agreements around the littoral of the South China Sea.

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The logical places to consider are the easiest.

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The South China Sea.

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The logical places to consider are the easiest.

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Those in the east, hopefully the Philippines, perhaps even a return to Subic Bay.

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In the west, in Vietnam, cam Ranh Bay is a logical spot.

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In the south, singapore, where we already have a robust presence makes the most sense In the north.

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We should continue to explore a strong refueling and resupply arrangement with Taiwan, even if this makes the Chinese upset, which it will.

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With a package of four bases, or at least four significant agreements for access and resupply, we could operate quite freely in the region.

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Additionally, we need to have a strong relationship with each of these nations around the littoral.

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We've already had such relationships with Japan and South Korea just outside the South China Sea, but we need to pursue exercises, military exchanges and maritime engagement with Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia.

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Continuing to pursue good maritime relations with Thailand, indonesia and even Cambodia would also be quite helpful.

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So those are some very good recommendations in a part of the world and certainly an area that's developing into a very, very hot spot.

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We're going to need to keep an eye on that area.

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Now, if you liked the content on this podcast, please check out Chip War by Chris Miller and the Hundred Year Marathon by Michael Pillsbury.

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Both are two influential books that explore different aspects of the global geopolitics and technology that we have covered here.

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We've focused chip war.

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We've had a podcast on chip war, rather, which is all about the semiconductor industry and its critical role in global politics and economics.

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We've also featured here, from this microphone, the 100-Year Marathon, which reveals China's alleged long-term strategy to supplant the United States as the world's dominant power.

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We'll put links in the show notes for you, so please check those out.

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But in today's Mojo Minute, our book of the day, sea Power, is not just a history book.

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It's a call to recognize and understand the ongoing importance of the world's oceans in shaping geopolitical realities and national strategies.

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Yes, understanding history is important, as it provides the context of how we got here from there.

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But also being aware of the changing tides of history, and especially those changing tides of the oceans, will allow all of us to live a more flourishing life and, frankly, we think sea power is a great contribution to help that understanding.

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Thanks for listening and, as always, let's keep fighting the good fight.

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Thank you for joining us.

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We hope you enjoyed this Theory to Action podcast.

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Be sure to check out our show page at teammojoacademycom, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast, as well as other great resources.

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Until next time, keep getting your mojo on.

MM#376--Navigating Maritime Supremacy: How Sea Power Shapes Global Dynamics

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