To Rule the Waves: How Control of the World's Oceans Shapes the Fate of the Superpowers

For centuries, oceans were the chessboard on which empires battled for supremacy.

But in the nuclear age, air power and missile systems dominated our worries about security, and for the United States, the economy was largely driven by domestic production, with trucking and railways that crisscrossed the continent serving as the primary modes of commercial transit.

All that has changed, as nine-tenths of global commerce and the bulk of energy trade is today linked to sea-based flows.