Thursday, December 9, 2010

Oceans: Power and Prosperity

Though the United State faces many economic challenges, one thing that is unlikely to change is that America has a very advantageous geographical position in regard to world trade. It faces the North Atlantic and Europe to the east. It faces the rapidly growing Pacific Rim area to the West. For a perspective on how important this could be, let's look back in history.

Looking at maps of Western Civilization at several of its high points, one is struck by a curious fact: they seem to be centered around oceans rather than land masses. Other civilizations have grown up around great rivers: Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and China. Western civilization has grown around seas: the Aegean, the Mediterranean, the North Sea, the Baltic and the Atlantic.

One usually thinks of Greece as a land-based entity, but at the height of its power in the days of Athens and Sparta, Greek settlements spread out over the shores of Asian Minor and the shores of the northern Aegean. The Greek world was thus to a large degree centered around the Aegean Sea. (The Greeks also traded far and wide across the Mediterranean.)

Similarly, though we usually think of the Roman Empire as a land-based entity, a quick look at a map reveals a curious fact: It completely encircled the Mediterranean Sea. Indeed, until Julius Caesar conquered Gaul, there really wasn't a whole lot of land mass to the empire in comparison to all that water. In those days, the civilized world was interconnected not only by the famous Roman roads, but also by sea, and held together by trade transported on ships.

To the north, there were trading areas centering around the North Sea and the Baltic Sea.

It was much faster and easier to travel and to transport freight by water than by land. Even today, though we can now carry freight by railroad, it is still easier by ship.

In addition, it appears that as the Western World grew, power flowed to the shores of ever larger bodies of water. The Greek world of the Aegean was superceded by the Roman world of the Mediterranean. Much later, when European powers facing the Atlantic Ocean (Spain, Portugal, England, the Netherlands, France) developed trade on that ocean, those countries became the preeminent world powers. The Western world became more and more built around the Atlantic, with America taking an ever larger role.

Eventually, the United States stretched from coast to coast, and it began to trade on the Pacific, too.

Since the Pacific is by far the largest ocean on earth, by this theory it could become (if it is not already) the richest and most powerful trading area in the world.

But of course the Atlantic is still a powerful trading area. And the United States faces both these oceans. It has the most powerful navy in the world to keep trade safe. The US trades by ocean to all points on earth.

Also America's east and west coasts are linked to all points of the continent by a well-developed railroad system.

By these facts alone, the power of the US economy is likely to remain formidable for quite some time yet. Of course it can decline, and of course other powers can rise. But it is not going away just yet.