How Control of the World's Oceans Shapes the Fate of the Superpowers

In “To Rule The Waves,” Bruce Jones,  director and a senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy at the Brookings Institution, charts three geopolitical struggles playing out on the Earth’s oceans: increasing competition between the United States and China; the unceasing flow of global commerce; and the science of a changing climate.

These struggles, complex individually and inextricably intertwined, define the critical role of the world’s oceans in global power politics. In this interview with The Diplomat’s Managing Editor Catherine Putz, Jones summarizes the ways the key dynamics of global power – trade and military might – are shaped by the seas and the ways in which climate change will present both challenges and opportunities, complicating cooperation along the way.

The dynamics of global power – trade and military might – have been shaped for hundreds of years by the sea. What struggles are being played out on the oceans of today?

The oceans are a central zone for commercial competition, scientific collaboration, and naval rivalry. Sea-based trade is not just an element of globalization; it’s the core of it. Fully 85 percent of global trade moves by sea, and roughly two-thirds of the world’s supply of oil and gas is either found at sea or moves by sea to its final market. All of this underpins a mounting naval arms race, centered in the Western Pacific, but rapidly spreading to the Arctic, Indian, Atlantic, and Southern Oceans as well.

Can you elaborate on the ways in which oceans factor into growing China-U.S. tensions?

China is hugely dependent on the flow of commercial and energy goods in and out of its near seas and thus confronted by an ever-deepening version of its Malacca Dilemma: The more it grows, the more dependent it becomes on the role of the U.S. Navy in providing security for the oceanic flow of free trade and of energy. It’s an untenable position for China, and the PLAN has moved to increase its own capacity to secure shipping and solidify China’s position in the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea. But now, having established a strong position in those waters, it’s looking to protect its presence there from American and allied action from the Western Pacific. And the PLAN is establishing a presence and reach out to the western edges of the Indian Ocean. Meanwhile Russia has bolstered its presence in the Arctic, from where it reaches down into the North Atlantic. All of this makes the U.S. Navy, and the U.S. establishment, deeply uneasy, as it does the European and Asian allies. The result is, in short, a mounting, global naval arms race.

Was there ever a period of time when the dominance of the sea in perceptions of global power waned? What changed about how we viewed the sea and is the proverbial tide shifting again?

During the peak of the Cold War, naval competition was secondary to the role of land armies in Europe and inter-continental nuclear weapons. The U.S. and Soviet navies were in constant tension with one another, but it wasn’t the heart of the rivalry. There was one important exception, of course, namely the nuclear submarine fleet – the most survivable part of the nuclear triad. Surface naval warfare, though, took a back seat to other parts of military rivalry. That’s rapidly changing, as naval competition has re-emerged as the driving part of military tensions between the top powers.

As you note in the book, an astounding 93 percent of data moves around the world via undersea cables. Who protests and maintains those cables? Why are they important to the operation of modern society?

Every time we use social media, online banking, go onto a Zoom meeting, or in a myriad of other ways use the internet, we’re relying on the data that flows through those cables. So are the world’s financial firms. And the world’s militaries, who manage increasingly complex data systems through which they track and target potential adversaries. All of this relies on fiber optic cables on the ocean floor. Many are owned by Western firms or states, some by China, others by smaller countries. Some are owned by private firms – Facebook and Microsoft are cooperating to lay very high speed cable between Asia and the U.S. markets. Several countries have cable-laying and cable-repair ships, and they operate in a very loosely governed regime. A smaller number of countries – notably the U.S., Russia, and China – have submarines that can protect or interfere with the cables. They are rapidly emerging as a fragile front line in what the Chinese call “informationized” warfare.

What are some of the ways climate change will impact geoeconomics and geopolitics?

Many people assume that climate change will be treated as a “common threat” that can mitigate tensions between the powers. Perhaps. But the interests of the powers only align in extremis. In the near to medium term, the interests differ widely. And short-to-medium term adaptation to warming seas and changing weather patterns is likely to be disruptive, and add to tensions and pressures between the powers.

Of course, there will be opportunities as well – as we are already seeing in the Arctic, where melting of the ice cap is increasing the productivity of the Arctic fishing grounds, opening up new fields for offshore gas, and holds the prospect of creating a new, much shorter trade route between Asia and the Atlantic. But all of those opportunities, as well, are just as much drivers of competition and rivalry as they are of cooperation and commerce.   

In researching and writing this book, what did you learn that surprised you the most?

I was very struck by several features of the ocean sciences: how deep the interplay has been and is between leading navies and the ocean sciences complex; how rich that science is; and how much of our understanding of our changing climate comes from the ocean sciences and the wider ocean/atmospheric sciences complex. It’s an extraordinary body of knowledge, growing ever richer. The U.S. plays a massive role in generating this knowledge and disseminating it – a crucial global public good that goes largely unmentioned in discussions of American leadership. Others are starting to deepen their contribution too – from Europe to South Korea to China. Germany looks set to play an important role in sustaining scientific collaboration. But of course, much of this is dual use – and mounting naval tensions may put some of that collaboration in doubt.