July 18, 2026:
Commercial shipping is facing unreliable sea routes and the risks of political, diplomatic and military interference with operations. This is a huge problem because the number of ships at sea on a typical day ranges from 50,000 to 60,000. Half of these are fishing boats, many of them freezer trawlers that stay at sea for months at a time. Five or six thousand Container Ships operate worldwide. There are about 10,000 Bulk Carriers, most of them carrying coal and other raw materials. There are up to 4,000 petroleum and other chemical tankers. Between two and three thousand General Cargo Ships transport goods that won’t fit in containers or are sanctioned or illegal and require discreet transportation. About a thousand Ro-Ro/Roll-On/Roll-Off ships are used to transport vehicles of all sizes and types, including heavy equipment.
Eighty percent of global trade moves by ship along a vast network of seagoing trade routes. China and the United States account for 43 percent of that trade, with China accounting for 17 percent and America 26 percent. Anything that threatens this trade is a major problem, and both America and China deal with the problem in their own ways. While the United States and its Western allies use warships and airstrikes against those who try to disrupt maritime trade, China prefers to bribe those who are attacking shipping not to attack Chinese ships. This tactic was most recently seen in the Persian Gulf, where Chinese ships paid the Iranians to allow them to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
When this Chinese immunity is noticed, China dismisses the accusations and claims its ship captains are simply more capable at avoiding attacks. This is obviously not the case, and the dispute ends in a muddle of mutual accusations. The current attacks are not destructive or widespread enough to do any serious damage to world trade. The Iran-backed Yemen Houthi rebels are firing Iranian-supplied rockets and missiles at ships passing the Yemen coast headed for the Suez Canal. Many, if not most, of the ships that normally use the Suez Canal now prefer to take the long way around to reach the Mediterranean Sea. This can cost over a million dollars per ship while adding several weeks to the trip. This did not turn out to be as much of a disaster as expected. There was a surplus of cargo and tanker ships, and the additional time required for existing ships to reach their destinations made it practical to put those surplus ships to work to ensure that all cargoes reached their destinations without incurring excessive insurance and operating costs.
Other potential chokepoints include the Strait of Malacca, the Taiwan Strait, the Strait of Gibraltar, the Bass Strait, the Strait of Hormuz, the Strait of Singapore, the Bering Strait, the Lombok Strait, the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, and the Bosporus.
While the Red Sea crisis was dealt with, a more ominous threat to global shipping is war between nations' submarines. For submarines to be involved would mean a non-nuclear world war. Anti-submarine escorts are not available in large numbers, and shipping companies, like their counterparts early in both world wars, would downplay the value of convoys and insist that they could avoid submarines by using new technology and tactics. When that doesn’t work, convoys are used, and ASW/Anti-Submarine Warfare is allowed to evolve and become effective enough to reduce losses to a sustainable level.
Protecting sea transportation is a vital task for shipping companies and most of the world's nations that depend on this trade. Shipping companies complain that navies are not doing enough to protect shipping in wartime. How accurate that is will only be revealed if there is another submarine offensive against maritime trade.