CIMSEC – 11 articles on the Red Sed, which has become arguably the most hotly contested maritime region in the world. A vital maritime chokepoint is being fought over by a coalition of naval powers and a heavily armed Iranian proxy group, the Houthis. These events offer useful lessons on the exercise of naval power, as well as the crisis decision-making of militaries, commercial firms, and nation-states.

War on the Rocks – The Arctic Ocean may be the world’s smallest but it looms large in the imagination. Remote and unique, the Arctic is, for some at least, the most romanticized ocean in the world. It has been fueling legends and ambitions for centuries, and continues to fuel new geopolitical myths today.

War on the Rocks – Comparing Indian and Chinese military capabilities in isolation from the broader transregional context can lead to inaccurate assessments. China faces security challenges at a much larger scale than India. Moreover, India currently also benefits from strategic partnerships with countries such as the United States, Japan, and France that give it greater latitude in the Indian Ocean, which is its principal area of interest. Growing power disparity will certainly keep Indian strategic thinkers worried for some time to come, but they should not lose sight of the strategic advantages India currently enjoys. These reflect India’s fewer supply-chain vulnerabilities in its own backyard, the nature of other security threats the two countries face, and, most important, the enormous geographical advantage India has over China in the Indian Ocean. Any Chinese naval flotilla sent to engage the Indian navy would be without reliable air cover and, due to logistical constraints, would only be able to sustain combat operations for a few weeks.

War on the Rocks – One Sea, Two Seas, Far Seas, Near Seas? For all the attention they receive as contested Indo-Pacific maritime regions, the strategic differences between East and South China Seas do not always get their due. Each of these bodies of water contains land features claimed by the People’s Republic of China and at least one ally or partner of the United States. To Beijing, the East and South China Seas are all part of its “near seas,” and China continues to take steps to assert control over this space as one unified maritime periphery — which we refer to colloquially as China’s “One Sea.” The disputed land features in these seas are small — islands, reefs, and rocks — but the economic, maritime, and security stakes associated with them are large. Countries around the East and South China Seas, however, are not taking China’s actions passively. In their own unique ways that reject the notion of a single “One China Sea,” these countries are adapting and exploring new methods to assert their own maritime rights.