Pax.

This is coolbert:

"Whoever commands the sea, commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself." - Sir Walter Raleigh.

From cdrsalamander.blogspot.com |  March 15, 2023 an extract and thanks to the Commander.

"Hendrix's View from an Island Nation"

"Very few Americans—or, for that matter, very few people on the planet—can remember a time when freedom of the seas was in question. But for most of human history, there was no such guarantee. Pirates, predatory states, and the fleets of great powers did as they pleased. The current reality, which dates only to the end of World War II, makes possible the commercial shipping that handles more than 80 percent of all global trade by volume—oil and natural gas, grain and raw ores, manufactured goods of every kind. Because freedom of the seas, in our lifetime, has seemed like a default condition, it is easy to think of it—if we think of it at all—as akin to Earth’s rotation or the force of gravity: as just the way things are, rather than as a man-made construct that needs to be maintained and enforced."

And as understood "freedom of the seas" as guaranteed by American naval power until relatively recently unchallenged and it being so for nearly a period of eighty years!

Anyone disagree with Sir Walter?

coolbert.