“Whosoever commands the sea commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself.” Coined by Sir Walter Raleigh and popularized by renowned strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan, this maxim has long underpinned U.S. grand strategy. For decades, the United States has relied on overwhelming naval power to perpetuate its military dominance, underwrite the security of global trade, and uphold the rules-based international order.
That era is coming to an end.
Whereas U.S. naval power once faced few meaningful constraints, the scope of its dominance has narrowed significantly. Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz is the most dramatic example of this change. The ease with which Iran has used drones, mines, and cheap missiles to obstruct Hormuz suggests that the United States can no longer guarantee freedom of navigation—even against weaker adversaries—through some of the world’s narrowest sea lanes, where geography and the proliferation of inexpensive weapons put even powerful navies at a disadvantage.
The Strait of Hormuz is unique in that there are no maritime alternatives, but it is not the only place that the U.S. ability to ensure the unconditional security of maritime commerce has been challenged. Just to the west, Houthi forces kept the Bab el-Mandeb Strait closed to most traffic for all of 2024 (Russia and China secured safe passage for their own ships) despite a U.S. military campaign to weaken and dislodge the group.
Meanwhile, China’s rapid naval expansion and immense shipbuilding capacity have made uncontested U.S. maritime dominance increasingly unsustainable even outside of the world’s choke points. The United States retains clear advantages on the high seas, but its freedom to maneuver is now limited even in regional waters, particularly in parts of East Asia and the Arctic, where, in a contingency, U.S. warships could be prevented from approaching close to an adversary’s coast by powerful anti-ship missiles or underwater sea drones.
For many in Washington, the end of guaranteed freedom of navigation is an unacceptable prospect. Yet while these changes pose new economic and military challenges, they do not constitute an existential threat to U.S. security or core interests. The United States can adapt—and even thrive—in a more competitive maritime environment by expanding regional economic networks, investing in resilient supply chains, and shifting greater maritime responsibility onto allies and partners.
Washington has long sought maritime supremacy for three main reasons. First, naval dominance and the U.S. ability to project military power globally is seen as necessary for national defense and the protection of national interests. Second, the capacity to universally guarantee freedom of navigation for seaborne trade is viewed as a prerequisite for a stable global trading regime. Finally, many in Washington believe that free and open seas are a foundational pillar of a peaceful international order.
The loss of maritime preeminence, however, does not necessarily mean the loss of these benefits.
As Mahan’s contemporary Sir John Corbett, and more recently political scientist Barry Posen, have argued, to ensure their physical and economic security, states require only sufficient naval power to establish temporary control of key sea lanes to access vital economic markets or to move military assets. With this more modest purview, the United States could still manage the maritime domain and intervene directly with force when required to defend core interests. In all other cases, however, Washington should turn responsibility for maritime security over to local actors and those most dependent on a specific choke point or sea lane.
The United States has more than enough naval power today to meet this goal. Most importantly, although it is no longer as dominant as it once was, the U.S. Navy still has sufficient capacity to project power in service of essential military or commercial activities and can reliably establish temporary periods of sea control far from the homeland when required. Its blockade of Iranian ports, though of questionable strategic value, is proof of this capability.
Maintaining the ability to carry out these types of activities, even far from home, is in U.S. interests, as is ensuring uncontested access to waters across the Western Hemisphere. But the United States can achieve this standard even if it accepts a position as one of several great naval powers and surrenders its role of guarantor of global freedom of navigation.
Notably, when Houthi forces targeted the Bab el-Mandeb, although the United States could not control the strait absolutely, its warships were still able to use the strait and conduct limited convoys, since they could defend against drones and missiles. In other words, it could still secure temporary access for operations. The U.S. Navy likely could do the same in Hormuz today. That it has not tried to forcibly open the strait is most likely a reflection of the more limited U.S. interests at stake (Americans have largely been shielded from the devastating effects that the rest of the world has faced) and the comparatively high costs of such a move, rather than the lack of capabilities required.
Even without the use of military force, the United States’ favorable geography allows it to adapt to maritime disruptions quite quickly. With long coastlines on both the Atlantic and Pacific, the United States can generally access major markets from multiple directions, and as Arctic ice recedes, northern sea routes may offer additional options for trade with Europe and elsewhere.
Furthermore, outside of Hormuz, disruption to a single sea lane can be managed by adopting alternate routes. When Houthi forces blocked traffic through the Red Sea, shipping companies quickly adjusted their charted courses and business practices to minimize delays and costs. A future blockage at the Malacca Strait or in the South China Sea could similarly be mitigated by rerouting through Southeast Asia or the Indonesian archipelago.
Critics argue that in a more contested maritime order, the risks of conflict and economic turmoil will rise, undermining U.S. safety and prosperity as well as global stability. They worry that in this future, states on key maritime passageways will gain leverage to hold vessels hostage or charge tolls that raise the costs of doing business. But a return to greater competition on the high seas would merely be a return to the historical norm.
There is little evidence that this change would inevitably lead to global instability or the end of the peaceful international order. If the United States stepped back from its role as guarantor of freedom of navigation, other countries would likely to step up to protect their own interests and prevent the emergence of new threats and conflicts on the high seas or the return of old ones, such as piracy.
This is already playing out: Countries in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East are working to form a coalition that will provide security in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea after the Iran war; Nordic and Baltic states are cooperating to better manage threats in the Baltic Sea and nearby Arctic waters; and countries in East and Southeast Asia are working together on maritime issues across the region.
The future maritime order, therefore, may look quite different than what exists today, but it may not be a more conflictual or predatory one. In fact, given the destabilizing role of U.S. naval power in recent years—especially in the Middle East and Latin America—it might even be more peaceful.
The United States can prosper in a world where the seas are contested, but it will need to update its economic and military strategies. The Trump administration should initiate this shift, though completing it will likely fall to future administrations.
First, the United States should prioritize deeper trade and investment ties within the Western Hemisphere. The Iran war has underscored the risks of relying too heavily on markets far from home, where access may be more easily interdicted. As the maritime domain becomes more competitive, investing instead in regional trade networks will reduce opportunities for such disruption and ease the burden of potentially defending important trade routes.
Some countries in the Western Hemisphere may have qualms about working with Washington given U.S. President Donald Trump’s extensive use of economic and military coercion across the region. However, the benefits of increased engagement with the United States are likely to outweigh these concerns, especially if Washington offers favorable terms.
Second, the United States should work to eliminate single points of failure in critical trade routes. Experts have warned for years about the vulnerability of the Strait of Hormuz and encouraged exporters in the Gulf to invest in alternative pipelines to get their oil and gas to market. Going forward, both governments and firms should ensure multiple pathways—maritime and overland—for accessing key commodities and technologies.
Finally, the United States should give up primary responsibility for securing maritime choke points and regional seas that are not core to its economic prosperity, shifting that burden to regional actors and those with most at stake for their safety or well-being.
In the Middle East, this would mean turning oversight of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb over to Gulf states, Europe, and East Asian countries such as Japan and China that depend most heavily on commodities that transit the region. In South Asia, maritime security would likely fall to India, Indonesia, Singapore, and Australia. The United States need not dictate these arrangements but should let them emerge organically based on parties’ resources and interests.
Even as it steps back, the United States would still maintain a powerful navy capable of securing access to sea lanes when necessary and contributing to international naval coalitions where it has interests at stake—for instance, with East Asian allies in the Western Pacific. The United States would also maintain the ability to secure choke points across the Western Hemisphere. But Washington would no longer be the sole underwriter of global freedom of navigation, nor would it continue to try to maintain unchallenged dominance of the maritime domain, the high seas, or regional waters.
A narrower maritime role would bring clear advantages. Most significantly, the United States could maintain a much smaller deployed military footprint, as well as a more limited defense budget, and would have fewer industrial demands. Strain on existing naval assets and personnel might also be reduced, putting the U.S. Navy on a more sustainable and efficient footing.
By contrast, refusing to adapt out of a desire to restore U.S. global naval supremacy—ensuring that no actor can ever again impede freedom of navigation as Iran has—would be a self-defeating and fiscally unsustainable mistake, likely leading to overextension and entanglement in unnecessary wars.
A more restrained maritime ambition may be politically difficult for Washington to embrace, but the United States is well-positioned for the change and would ultimately be better off for it.
