The World Order and the High Seas and Oceans

Historically, the emergence of world power centers was associated with their great military that controlled vast swathes of land and subjugated other armies, antagonized other nations, besieged cities, invaded the mainlands of opponents, possessed large naval fleets that roamed the waters reaching the depths of seas and the heights of oceans, controlled commercial navigation routes protecting them from pirates, made sure their ships are safe, and reassured merchants that their commodities and merchandise carried in these ships could securely travel to various countries.

Historical data extrapolation reveals that empires and modern states that neglected to build naval fleets capable of combat have been unable to become global power centers or that they failed to initiate, occupy, and sustain their position as global power centers in the second cycle of the international order after having reached that international status in a previous cycle.

Researchers in the sociology of the state and the sociology of empires have been baffled as to what factors caused the sudden disappearance and demise of the Mongol Empire and its extinction after it ruled the ancient world in what is today Asia and Europe for centuries. It extended its control over most of the Eurasian geopolitical sphere, assumed the position of a global power center, and oversaw and commanded the politics of a unipolar international order for over a century.

No historical empire or modern state has risen to the position assumed today by the United States as a sole power center managing a unipolar world order except for the Mongol Empire. Like the United States, the Mongol Empire was unique in its capacity to rule during its historical cycle of the international order. Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser to US President Jimmy Carter and chief strategist of the American Democratic Party drew a parallel between the British Empire at the height of its glory and expansion during the Victorian era to the Mongol Empire in its expansionist period. However, the correct analogy should be based on measuring the Mongol Empire’s and the United States’ unilateral control of a unipolar system during two historical cycles of the international order.

The Mongol Empire launched military campaigns toward the East and West of the Globe and its armies seized world cities back then. It took hold of China and removed the Song dynasty. Mongolian Kublai Khan established the Yuan dynasty in 1271 AD. The Mongol army seized Central and South Asia, including Bukhara, Samarkand, and Rayy. It conquered the kingdoms of the Khwarizm Shah and entered Baghdad, the capital of the Islamic Empire at that time, in 656 AH or 1258 AD, wielding its sword in the lands it occupied. The Mongol Golden Horde, led by Batu Khan, seized Russia. The Mongol general Subutai Khan burned Kyiv in 1240 AD. The Mongol army fought the armies of Europe combined and defeated them in the Battle of Legnica in 1241 AD in what is today Bavaria, Germany. Eurasia and the whole world was condemned to submission and obedience to the sole world power center that was the Mongol Empire.

Despite its power and control, researchers are still perplexed about what caused its disappearance and its inability to resume its role as the sole power center in the subsequent cycle of the international order after the end of the previous cycle in which it appeared and had exclusive power and control over the management of world politics and the world order.

A deep dive into the matter and considerable scrutiny reveal a fundamental cause, among others, for this collapse and disintegration of the Mongol Empire: its lack of a significant combatant naval fleet, the reduction of the number number of ships being built, limiting the size of its naval fleet, and its inability to establish a maritime power equivalent to its armies and ground forces that have been said to fill the horizon when they marched and lined up to fight land battles. This became even clearer after the destruction of its fleet during the first invasion of Japan om 1274 AD, in the Battle of Bun’ei, and in the Battle of Kōan in 1281 AD, where typhoons and kamikaze winds (“divine winds”) destroyed and sank most of the ships of the Mongol fleet. The Mongol vessels that survived the elements were destroyed by the ships of the Japanese Shogunate fleet as a result of the weakness of the Mongolian ships and the defects in the designs of their masts and beams. This was a consequence of a rushed building of the fleet on the orders of the Great Mongolian leader Kublai Khan and the use of some ships surrendered by the Southern Song dynasty after its defeat to the Mongols in 1279 AD.

After it failed to invade Japan, the Mongol Empire did not reattempt to build a robust naval fleet to conquer the high seas and oceans. Instead, it limited itself to land invasions with large masses of Mongols and other subjects of the empire. This strategy precluded them from accessing great resources for expanding and sustaining the greatness of their empire in subsequent historical cycles in the international order.

Consequently, this great empire fell and disintegrated in the mists of history and retracted from the geopolitical spheres it once controlled.

The second Islamic Empire (during the Umayyad era) built a large fleet and invaded Cyprus and Sicily in the Mediterranean Sea; otherwise, this empire would have perished early too. Building a great and powerful naval fleet roaming the Mediterranean was one of the factors for the survival of this empire as a Middle Eastern power center for several historical cycles of the international system. Having possession of this fleet allowed the Fatimid Caliph al-Mansur to send more than three hundred ships led by Ya’qub ibn Ishaaq in 323 AH/935 AD to conquer Sardinia. The warriors then landed on the Italian mainland, occupied Venice, and resided there for a year. This conquest was the first time the Islamic Empire’s army set foot in Italy. Heading a large naval fleet, the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II later invaded it, determined to seize and occupy Rome in 1481 AD.

The sizeable military fleet established in the Mediterranean Sea by the Ottoman Sultanate confronted the Spanish fleet and fought several battles with it. Afterward, a cold war period reigned between the two parties at sea. This is when the term Cold War appeared for the first time in history, describing the status quo between the Ottoman and Spanish fleets in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in the Mediterranean sea.

When the Spanish and Ottoman fleets weakened, the English and Russian fleets defeated them. The Spaniards lost their dominion over the seas and oceans that lasted for two centuries and were driven out of them. English control strengthened, and the Great English Empire became a global power center assisted by a naval force that conquered the world’s fleets. The European and Asian powers were unable to fight it. It became the empire on which the sun never sets: it ruled over more than four hundred million people worldwide, and its influence extended over more than twenty million square kilometers on various continents. It established a political geography that still exists today in many parts of the world. This was possible because of its control over the seas and its reach over the heights of the oceans with the most powerful global fleet. It ascended to its position as the leading global power center between 1800-1945 AD, when the number of ships in its fleet reached 152 vessels in the first half of the nineteenth century, from the latest productions of the advanced English industry at that time, and it was not matched or condemned by another global naval power until the United States began America built its naval fleet since the end of the nineteenth century to carry out combat missions on the high seas and oceans.

When Great Britain lost its leading control over the seas and oceans, it neglected its naval fleet, and its maritime power declined; this coincided with its demise from its former position as a global power center until it was nearly defeated in the Falklands War in 1982. When Argentina decisively sought to regain control of the Falklands through military force to achieve this, Britain hardly prevailed, only with assistance from the United States of America, and despite the use of two aircraft carriers HMS Hermes, HMS Invincible, and several destroyers, frigates, and other ships. Argentina advanced at the start of the war until the Americans soon came to the rescue of the British. They won a weak victory after Britain had been the foremost world power, driven by the greatness of its naval fleet. When this fleet weakened and lost its supremacy, Great Britain lost its central powerful global status and position.

Similarly, throughout history, no ancient empire was capable of establishing an empire that could compare to the Roman Empire in terms of the ingenuity of its administrative system, the robustness of its political system, the strength of its financial system, the prosperity of its economic system, the speed with which its land armies moved on the highways it paved, and the dominance of its naval fleet over the Mediterranean Sea until it became like an enclosed lake for Rome.

This empire did not assume its global status and its international position as a unilateral power center until it imposed its hegemony over the seas at the end of the first Punic War that ended in 200 BC. During this period, its fleet reached 330 barks and five-masted ships carrying 140 thousand soldiers and warriors on board, in addition to the crew of each vessel, rowers, fighters, marines, and others. The Roman fleet matched the greatness of the Chinese fleet that peaked during the Qin Dynasty and Han Dynasty eras, reaching 100,000 fighters deployed on board the fleet’s vessels.

The Roman navy was one of the most significant resources of the empire and an essential factor in propelling Rome to the position of the global power center, which set the rules of the geopolitical relationships in this wide circle in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa for centuries.

When the Roman fleet dwindled in numbers, equipment, and supplies, and the Roman Empire weakened along with it, and its neighbors and opponents began to eye conquering it. Its status and position continued to weaken until it faltered out of its global position in that historical cycle of the international order.

There is a very significant affinity between rising to the position of a global power center and the establishment of a mighty military naval fleet. Therefore, China must establish a modern maritime fleet and build aircraft carriers, destroyers, and frigates of the fourth and fifth generations by 2035 to measure up to the United States of America. The latter is developing its multiple fleets by manufacturing modern fifth-generation harnessing artificial intelligence, nano-digital technology, advanced guidance devices, radars, and control and monitoring systems that rely on quantum physics to maintain its control over the seas and oceans. When this is ready and available to a nation, that nation can maintain its international status and position as a power center for several centuries in the international order.

Since World War II, the United States has perceived and realized the advantages of having multiple fleets spread in blue geopolitical spheres near the main global straits, major waterways, and vital maritime navigation routes for international trade, such as the Strait of Malacca, the Strait of Taiwan, the Strait of Magellan, the Strait of Gibraltar, the Strait of Bab al-Mandab, the Strait of Hormuz, and other sea passages through which hundreds of millions of tons of goods, commodities, food, energy products, and others pass.

The deployment of American fleets in the Pacific Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean, and other blue geopolitical spheres made available to the United States great resources that made it possible to establish and permanently maintain the USA in the position of a global power center in the international order for several historical cycles to come.

Despite their importance, these resources are not limited to economic and financial benefits. They instead go beyond, to the strategic resources and geopolitical benefits that secured the United States’ presence all over the globe, making the whole world a vital ground and a sphere of influence for its interests and influence.

The Soviet Union lacked this feature, which sets it apart from the United States. Compared to the Americans, the Soviets did not pay attention or take care to establish major fleets and deploy them in the seas and oceans. This was one of the reasons, among others, for the demise of the Soviet Union.

Russia is facing great hardship in retaining a position as a power center in the upcoming multipolar world in the next historical cycle of the international system. The West has incapacitated Russia, exhausted it strategically by draining it and consuming its military resources in the Ukraine war, and imposed sanctions and restrictions on its banks and financial and industrial institutions. Russia currently has no power to assume the position of a global power center unless it takes several economic and strategic measures, including the modernization of its naval fleets, whose aircraft carriers, most of its destroyers, frigates, and submarines date back to the Soviet era, except for a few submarines manufactured by Russia and put in service since 2018, especially the Poseidon model.

Russia should invest vast amounts of money in modernizing those ships and military equipment and shifting forward from the third-generation ships dominating its fleets to the fourth-generation vessels to catch up to the United States and China if it wants to occupy the position of a future power center. Otherwise, like the Soviet Union, it will miss on the resources needed to assume, maintain, and preserve the position of global power centers.

It is widely known that the US Navy has included six operating fleets since World War II to the present day, which guarantees and secures the United States’ position as the foremost global center of power since then. It also ensures its sustainability in future historical cycles, as these fleets safeguard the presence of the United States in the main geopolitical arenas in the world, imposing American strategies and confronting the crises and dangers that might suddenly arise and threaten the global political realities or put vital American interests at risk. This presence provides the capability for direct intervention to resolve matters before proliferating. This is a feature unique to the United States since World War I and the Soviet Union lacked it, and so do China and Russia today. This allows the US to wage wars from aboard its fleets and launch harsh military campaigns since its fleets have enough supplies, equipment, and forces to mobilize on the spot, which usually requires a long time, by which an emergency crisis would escalate and become a major crisis.

These fleets are:

– The Third Fleet: based in San Diego on the Pacific Ocean and supervises the North and East Pacific operations.

– The Fourth Fleet: based in Jacksonville, Florida, and supervises operations in Latin America and South America.

– The Fifth Fleet: based in Bahrain and supervises operations in the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, the Horn of Africa, and Eastern Africa.

– The Sixth Fleet: based in the Italian city of Naples and supervises operations in the Mediterranean and Europe.

– The Seventh Fleet: based in the city of Yokosuka on the Japanese Island of Kanagawa and supervises operations in East and South Asia and the Pacific Ocean.

– The Tenth Fleet: based in Maryland and supervises cyberspace, the Internet, and space.

The US Navy includes 11 aircraft carriers in service, some in reserve, and others under construction to be put in service soon, for example, the USS Harry Truman, USS Carl Vinson, USS George Bush, and many others.

A group of vessels, including frigates, destroyers, corvettes, and submarines, accompany each aircraft carrier to protect it at its deployment site.

The US Navy included 275 marine vessels until 2017. Hence, US President Donald Trump ordered the manufacture of an additional 75 new vessels of various types, and the increase of the number of marine vessels to 350. The Navy also includes 3,700 combat aircraft, helicopters, reconnaissance aircraft, etc. The number of personnel deployed reaches 500,000, spread over 75,000 building structures.

The US Fourth Fleet led the invasion of Grenada in 1983, ending the rule of the radical Marxist-Leninist New Jewel Movement, as well as the invasion of Panama and the arrest of its President, Manuel Noriega, in 1989.

The Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean also led successive military campaigns in Lebanon in 1983, against Iraq between 1991 and 2003 during the invasion of Iraq, and against Libya first in 1986 in the campaign to impose a no-fly zone, and then in 2011 when Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown.

The Sixth Fleet and Fifth Fleet led a long-term air campaign to combat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria from 2014 until now.

This is a strategic feature that other countries lack and that China and Russia are unable to acquire. To have it requires air and land military bases from which their aircraft can take off, like the long-term air campaign that Russia launched against armed groups in Syria since 2015 from the Hmeimim Airbase in Latakia, using its only aircraft carrier, Admiral Kuznetsov shortly in 2016, launching MIG-29 fighter aircraft that bombed the military outposts of these groups in Idlib, Raqqa, and Northern Aleppo.

The United States possesses the capability to impose its global hegemony through its fleets deployed in the blue geopolitical areas, from which it monitors shipping routes and international trade, thus making vast resources available to sustain its global influence. This strategic feature provides it with geopolitical characteristics that its competitors, opponents, and even its allies lack. It can promptly open its allies’ airspace and get immediate access to their military land bases in their deployment areas, providing speedy delivery of supplies when necessary in the case of war or sudden emergency crises. An example of this is what happened when the United States evacuated its citizens from Khartoum a week after the start of the violent conflict between the Sudanese Army and the Rapid Support Forces on April 15, 2023, through a quick and stunning air operation.

The US possesses several nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, cruisers, and destroyers, giving them unlimited sailing time.

The geopolitical reconfiguration associated with the transition of the unipolar international system to a multipolar world accompanied by wars and major military campaigns requires many strategic tools and means. This includes massive naval fleets with their aircraft carriers and attack combat groups, which will secure their respective countries’ role and participation in building exclusive geopolitical circles of influence and ensure they reserve a position as global power centers.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in World War II, American aircraft carriers played a crucial role in defeating Japan given the absence of ground borders between them. Similarly, naval powers and the major fleets will fight violent wars for the geopolitical reconfiguration associated with the transition to a multipolar world.

China will resort to its naval power, fleet, and aircraft carriers to cross the Taiwan Strait, besiege the island, and surround it from all sides with its ships, frigates, submarines, and dock landing ships to invade and seize it. This geostrategic change will cause geostrategic disturbances that will lead to a world war fought by the United States and its allies, Japan, South Korea, and others, against China, North Korea, and perhaps Russia.

China conducted military exercises in April 2023 and August 2022 by deploying its fleet around Taiwan, blockading it, and simulating a military campaign to seize it. Its naval fleet will be the primary strategic tool in this expected geopolitical reconfiguration.

Accordingly, China, which owns the largest fleet in the world, with an arsenal of 700 marine pieces, is on the way to achieving a position as a global power center.

The Chinese Navy owns three aircraft carriers, the Liaoning (Soviet-made), Shandong, and the Type 003, which are made in China. It also plans to build a fourth aircraft carrier, thus becoming the second naval force in the world after the United States.

China has historically had a large fleet since the rule of the Han Dynasty. Its fleet peaked during the era of the Southern Song dynasty (960-1279 AD), then it declined at the end of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911 AD), especially after its defeat in the First Opium War (1839-1842) against the English fleet. In 1964, China restarted building its naval power while testing its first nuclear weapon.

China owns 60 submarines, including four nuclear submarines, 20 destroyers, and 54 frigates. Still, its aircraft carriers run on conventional rather than nuclear fuel, limiting its operational capacity in the high seas and oceans. It seeks to build a nuclear aircraft carrier to reach remote areas and protect its interests there. American fleets are still the sole protector of global trade and oil supplies to China, Russia, and other countries due to the inability of others to do such work to this day.

China will ascend to the role of global power center for several reasons, especially its possession of strategic capabilities that include: Dongfeng intercontinental missiles (DF41, DF31, DF26) with the ability to launch them from land, sea, and air using strategic bombers (H-20, H-16) and fifth-generation stealth aircraft FC-31, and the ability to destroy satellites using precision missiles since 2007, coupled with a fleet of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

To conquer the high seas and oceans and maintain this positioning permanently was, historically, a necessary condition that remains so today for any power to ascend to the position of a global power center and remain in it for several historical cycles.

China has completed the requirements that permit it to become a power center. However, it still needs to realize the condition of permanent deployment in the oceans and distant seas, just like the United States of America. This will free its trade and energy sources currently held hostage by the Americans under whose protection they are in these areas.

As for Russia, it owns the fleets in the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Baltic Sea, and the Northern and Pacific fleets. However, it holds only one aircraft carrier dating back to the Soviet era. Russia possesses a fleet of conventional and nuclear submarines, destroyers, corvettes, and conventional frigates, among others. Russia’s maritime power is deeply rooted in Russian history since the reign of Emperor Peter the Great, who defeated the Swedish and Finnish navies. It also defeated the Russian Navy and the Ottoman fleet several times in the Black Sea.

If Russia is determined to become a power center in the upcoming multipolar international system, then it must make up for the resources and assets that are necessary conditions of survival as a global power center and permanence in its international position, and which the Soviet Union failed to achieve before its demise and what Russia has neglected doing since 1992. These conditions are economic modernization through the transition from an energy-based economy. The weakness of this model of economy became apparent only after the West imposed sanctions and a cap on oil and gas prices, which forced Russia to look for new markets where it still had to sell for reduced prices.

Russia must start a civil industrial and technological revolution that can catch up with the Chinese and Western digital industries, fifth-generation technology, electronic chips, and other industries it did not partake in or compete in previously.

Russia also needs to acquire ample resources for permanently deploying its fleets in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans and some strategically important seas to rise to a global power center position in the multipolar world it has been calling for more than a decade ago.

As for Japan, it had established a great maritime power at the beginning of the twentieth century after the reform of the Meiji era in the second half of the nineteenth century. It owned over 130 naval vessels between 1910 and 1945. It deployed its fleet in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, far from its mainland. This enabled it to assume a position of a global power center in the first half of the twentieth century. It defeated Russia in the 1905 war, and it colonized China, Korea, Manchuria, the Philippines, and many countries of Southeast Asia until its defeat in World War II.

Today, Japan has the capabilities, resources, and assets to become a global power center but lacks the political will to propel it to that position.

Iran and Turkey have realized the necessity of deploying their fleets on the high seas and oceans in conjunction with their ascension to regional and international power centers positions. They are seeking to modernize their fleets and mobilize substantial financial resources for manufacturing drone carriers and helicopters, deploying them permanently in the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea, and seeking to access the Atlantic Ocean. If they achieve their objectives, they will become dominant regional powers in the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, and the Mediterranean Sea.

Historical evidence and proof have unequivocally shown that extending influence and regional and international hegemony is associated with permanent deployment in the seas and oceans and the provision of enormous resources necessary to maintain this deployment.

If Saudi Arabia and Egypt do not want to allow Iran and Turkey to become the sole centers of power and regional hegemony in this geopolitical sphere, they must possess the financial, military, and strategic resources and assets to deploy their fleets in the seas surrounding them permanently. If they fail to do so, Iran and Turkey’s influence and control will take over the region by permanently deploying their fleets in the seas and oceans adjacent to the Middle East.

The economic projects of the Gulf countries, their 2030 visions, and the associated costs of billions of dollars to establish new cities and markets will not be of benefit unless protected by military capabilities. As Solon said, whoever holds the iron, seizes the gold from its owner.