This is part of the essay series: Sagarmanthan Edit 2026.
Events in the Black Sea, Red Sea, and Strait of Hormuz suggest that, as inexpensive anti-ship capabilities proliferate, the world must rethink where freedom of navigation comes from and what it is meant to achieve. After more than four months of painstaking mine clearance, US Central Command declared the Oman transit lane of the Strait of Hormuz navigable, yet maritime traffic continues to move slowly. The assumption that naval power, particularly that of the United States, was both necessary and sufficient to keep open the sea lanes required by a liberal world trading order was simplistic in the past and is unconvincing today. Open sea lanes depend not on navies alone, but on law, shared commercial interests, redundant routes, competitive markets for shipping, insurance and finance, ports and pipelines, and selective military force. Freedom of navigation, therefore, cannot be about guaranteeing every ship the cheapest route at every moment. Its purpose should be to provide the economic resilience and responsiveness needed to prevent temporary geographic leverage from becoming a monopoly.
The Commoditisation of Sea Denial
Admiral Samuel Paparo, Commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, has observed that “the commoditization of cheap, massed, unmanned, and frequently autonomous systems” has lowered the barrier to entry. Sea denial, once exclusive to major states, has become commodified.
Ukraine, without a conventional navy, used land-based missiles and uncrewed surface vessels to drive much of Russia’s fleet from Sevastopol, damaging or destroying 26 vessels by September 2024. Still, Russia retained the ability to strike Ukrainian ports. Neither side had sea control, but both could impose serious costs. This produced mutual deterrence: by June 2024, nearly 2,000 ships had carried 55 million tonnes through Ukraine’s corridor while Russian oil continued to leave Novorossiysk. The equilibrium remained unstable: a new sensor, weapon, tactic, or political decision could upset the balance, and civilian shipping remained exposed. It now appears to have collapsed, as both sides wage unrestricted economic war on each other.
Hormuz represents the worst-case scenario for commoditised sea denial, given its combination of economic value and geographic susceptibility to disruption.
Such an equilibrium is impossible in the Red Sea. More than 20 nations joined Operation Prosperity Guardian, yet intercontinental shipping transits around the Cape of Good Hope are 74 percent higher than pre-war levels. Yemen’s Houthis cannot be deterred because they have little to lose; they do not depend on the maritime system they attack, so traditional global and regional powers have little of value to hold at risk. Warships can defeat individual attacks, but they have not restored commercial confidence.
Hormuz represents the worst-case scenario for commoditised sea denial, given its combination of economic value and geographic susceptibility to disruption. In the first half of 2025, roughly one-fifth of global petroleum consumption passed through the strait each day. Iran’s restriction of passage after the US-Israeli attacks of February 2026 was an act of desperation, not confident sea control. Nonetheless, the United States was forced to respond in kind with a blockade. If the US Navy cannot create freedom of navigation in Hormuz, no navy can.
Using Alfred Thayer Mahan’s more capacious definition of sea power does not solve this problem. China has one of the world’s largest merchant fleets and close relations with Iran. Yet Chinese ships have largely stopped transiting Hormuz. A merchant marine is useful, but ownership of hulls does not guarantee access when captains, cargo owners, and insurers judge a route too dangerous.
Beyond the Map’s Chokepoints
The good news is that there are fewer true chokepoints than our maps suggest A 2025 Nature Communications study modelled 24 major maritime chokepoints and found only four without rerouting options: Hormuz, the Bosporus, the Oresund (connecting the Baltic and North Seas), and Bohai (through which much of China’s commercial traffic passes). Suez, Bab el-Mandeb, Panama, and Malacca are valuable economic shortcuts rather than essential geographic waypoints. The study estimated annual expected losses at $10.7 billion, plus $3.4 billion from higher freight rates when ships reroute around disrupted chokepoints. These amounts are substantial, but they would be unevenly distributed and small relative to global trade.
When the Ever Given blocked Suez, drought restricted Panama, and Houthi attacks endangered the Red Sea, the result was delay, higher rates, and increased fuel consumption, especially for nearby and developing economies. Even so, shipping companies rerouted, schedules changed, inventories rose, and capacity followed demand. These waterways are crowded because they are convenient. Every sanction is a weapon that shoots backwards; exploiting a chokepoint raises the value of alternatives.
Naval powers intervened against the Houthis, but the economic pain has not led them to accept the much wider war that would likely be required to compel shipping to return. In that sense, the market is working; adaptation is cheaper than escalation.
The US campaigns against the Barbary states are a tempting comparison. The US did not rely on naval power alone; it combined military force with diplomacy, ransom payments, and tribute. Military force eventually helped end these payments because the threat came from a limited area and from governments that were willing to negotiate. Today’s situation is different. It is much harder to use naval power to solve a problem when missiles and drones can be launched from many places along a long coastline.
Trusting Markets, Building Resilience
As a result, we should trust markets and make them resilient. Keep shipbuilding, shipping, marine insurance, reinsurance, classification, and port services healthy and competitive. On this front, the largest threat comes not from Ukraine’s, Iran’s, or even China’s military capability but from China’s immense leverage across much of the commercial maritime system, particularly shipbuilding, shipping, and port infrastructure. Governments should backstop catastrophic risk, invest in alternative ports, pipelines, storage, and maritime data, and fund cheaper defences without freezing commerce into previous routes. Different ships will be built: some larger, longer-range vessels with greater endurance, and others with flexible cargo configurations and better passive protection.
A free maritime order is one in which a blocked passage changes prices and routes, but does not determine political obedience; preserving that distinction is the purpose of freedom of navigation.
The High North may become an option, but it is not a silver bullet. Arctic traffic is rising, yet it remains seasonal, remote, environmentally dangerous, and dependent on specialised ships and sparse infrastructure. China already produces roughly half of global merchant-ship output and is positioned to capture much of the demand created by longer routes and fleet replacement. India, Japan, South Korea, Europe, and the United States should respond not with autarky but with a competitive maritime coalition that expands supply, shares standards, and keeps finance contestable.
The seas are unlikely to be free of coercion in the near term. The first step is to recognise the problem without relying on a higher power to provide the solution. The task is to ensure that local denial does not become global control. A free maritime order is one in which a blocked passage changes prices and routes, but does not determine political obedience; preserving that distinction is the purpose of freedom of navigation.
Jonathan D. Caverley is Senior Fellow for Defence Strategy and Industrial Policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
José Alberto González Aranda is a Research Analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
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