Navigating the New Maritime Age

Though only a minority of the world’s population works in sea-related occupations today, seaborne trade and naval capacities are at historic levels in human history. Meanwhile, beneath the sea, a vast amount of digital commerce hums invisibly through a global network of sunken fibre-optic cables. Climate change is revolutionizing trade routes while opening the door to more national conflicts, particularly in the Arctic, which represents an estimated 13 per cent of the world’s undiscovered oil and 30 per cent of the world’s undiscovered gas. Superpowers and coastal states are making aggressive new claims on island chains and seaways and investing heavily in the latest generation of naval power in order to be able to back up these claims militarily. This article explains how all of these factors will have a significant impact on how businesses run. Now is the time to plan for disruptions to any part of the maritime ecosystem, which could create a big, unexpected shock to national economies while imposing serious damage on private-sector operations.