It is an opening to the rest of the world that provides coastal nations with economic opportunity and access to resources and trade. Today’s Mediterranean Sea provides a picture of what we should expect the oceans of tomorrow to look like. Just as the world’s oceans are being transformed by the positive effects of globalization, they are also fraught with the insecurity and friction that come with increased access and interaction.Īs these trends continue, the Earth’s oceans will increasingly resemble smaller and more crowded bodies of water, where activities, interests, and threats converge. Competing territorial and resource claims make the future of the Arctic uncertain. American military personnel were recently held captive for incursions into Iranian waters.
The nightly news still regularly features reports of hundreds of migrant deaths at sea. Despite such progress, however, the maritime domain continues to present daunting challenges. The effects of globalization are more readily seen on the oceans than they are in perhaps any other place. The number of participants in this system has increased drastically in recent years, with developing countries now accounting for nearly half of global trade. The size of individual container ships continues to grow, allowing more economically significant shipments between trading partners across the world. Over the past two decades, the volume of global trade travelling by ship has more than doubled, while overall vessel traffic has more than quadrupled.
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