In surveying the present state of the world's sea lanes and their significance in terms of security, whether national or global in scope, it is essential that one looks beyond statistics to understand why the sea lanes that traverse over two-thirds of our earth's surface is more than just about the ships and the cargoes that ply the sea lanes daily.

　

　　Instead, the sea lanes represents the arteries of global commerce that bring the fruits of globalization to all points of the globe's compass. Such a view no doubt invites parallels to the Internet in terms of its global reach. Yet, despite the razzle-dazzle of the Internet and its exalted place in the globalization phenomena that has caught the world's imagination in the last decade and into the new millenium, its impact on everyday lives pales in comparison to the scale generated by ocean transportation.

　

　　On a global basis the Internet is a minority enterprise with fewer participants than the population of America and more telephones in Manhattan than the entire continent of Africa. Yet everyone on the planet is affected by a more mundane and simple "communications" technology; there can be few anywhere, however isolated from phones and supermarkets, who do not daily touch something that has traveled in a container.

　

　　Paul Fisher in a commentary in the Daily Telegraph waxes eloquently on the impact of the container on the average citizen:

　

Since 1955, when containers were introduced, international trade has grown more than twice as fast as the global economy. The efficiency of containerization has given a new twist to the idea of free trade because shipping charges now account for little over one percent of consumer goods' retail price. Far more than the information economy, a speeded maritime economy is what has changed patterns of life. While the rate of mutation from old ways has been oiled by computers, the driving force has been the cheap shipment of solid product.

　

The gigantic details of modern shipping are as invisible to the average citizen as the passage of electrons round a printed circuit board. There are other comparisons, for containers provide a hefty physical analogue to the Web. Things, rather than messages, are bundled into standard units. While computer data travels in information packets 1,500 characters long, cartons of components and finished products in their retail-friendly boxes pack into six meter-equivalent units or TEUs. In both cases, ever greater number of packages of indeterminate contents are posted cheaply through efficient global networks. The effect of shrinking distance - and with a dilution of our senses of wonder and difference - is the same.ⁱ

　　In many ways, an overview of the changes occurring in the world's sea lanes today harkens back to the past where in the previous turn of the century a distinguished professor at the U.S. Naval War College, Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, took note of what was occurring on the sea lanes when penning his seminal book on sea power and geo-politics, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History in 1896. Of course, the world of maritime transport and geo-politics has changed dramatically since then, but his message remains timeless: When fashioning a national security policy, it is essential to take stock of the world's sea lanes, as they hold the keys to a nation's prosperity and standing in the world.