The Incredible Shrinking Global Sea Powers

The obvious place to look if you want to understand the future is cyberspace — the birthplace of virtual worlds, artificial intelligence and other digital wonders. But we shouldn’t forget the case for keeping a watchful eye on something more elemental — the relative fortunes of land powers versus sea powers. Sages from Homer onwards have argued that land and sea powers generate different societies and we forget their wisdom at our peril.

Everywhere you look, land powers are on the march. Russia is trying to reassemble its old imperium by gobbling up first Crimea and now Ukraine. China has ingested the great seaport of Hong Kong and may be planning to do the same to the island of Taiwan. Brexit means that the European Union is more than ever a land-power: dominated by Germany and France and looking eastward towards land-locked Mitteleuropa. The United States, which has long flipped between being a land power and a sea power, is turning inwards once again.