Delivering Maritime Power in the Age of Interconnectivity
| Author | Bob Tarrant |
| Published date | 01 October 2011 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-5899.2011.00126.x |
| Date | 01 October 2011 |
Delivering Maritime Power in the
Age of Interconnectivity
Commodore Bob Tarrant
ADC Royal Navy
When was the last time you were on or near the sea?
For most of us the answer will almost certainly be when
we were enjoying leisure time. For the rest of the year
most of us can remain fairly oblivious to the medium
that shapes our topography, our climate, our history,
our political make-up, our unique outlook, our economic
well-being and our security. Yet the sea is far more
important to us than we think. And even if it might not
appear to mean a great deal to us now, it will in the
future. It remains the world’s first and most important
means of interconnectivity, and it is truly a global sys-
tem. The sea and our relationship with it is changing
and not in ways that are necessarily obvious.
If we take a leap back into British history, it is easy to
gauge the impact of the sea. It has given us a different
outlook. The reasons we speak a variant of Anglo-Saxon
and not a Latin language, the reasons we have a unique
religious make-up, a peculiar political system and today’s
multicultural society, are all shaped in some way by our
relationship with the sea. No geographical point in Britain
is more than 70 miles from the coast. For much of our his-
tory the sea has provided a protective shield, preventing
invasion, and it has been the medium that allowed us to
create a giant empire. Yet the sea rarely figures in peo-
ple’s consciousness – we have become sea blind.
Familiarity (or perhaps unfamiliarity) has bred con-
tempt; it is taken for granted. The sea has lost its sense
of mystique. The sea and all associated with it are seen
as pertaining to the realm of history and tradition. Very
few of us are now actually employed at or on the sea
and numbers are declining. For most of us, no obvious
threat comes from the sea and it has lost its own innate
sense of danger. Just occasionally, a catastrophic event,
like the Japanese tsunami, the tragic death of North Afri-
can migrants or the latest infringement by Somali
pirates, serves to remind us that the two-thirds of the
planet covered by water still remain untamed and lar-
gely ungoverned. Yet the sea can no longer be ignored.
Profound changes are afoot that will impinge on us and
our relationship with the sea. It will affect attitudes, our
well-being, our security and the way we live in the
future.
For some the impact of these changes is all too real.
Those on the coast are finding that the sea is taking a very
direct role in their lives. Coastal erosion and flooding
mean that the sea has made an unwelcome intrusion into
people’s homes. The Thames Barrier has now been
employed on 75 occasions in the first decade of the 21st
century, yet was only used four times in the 1980s, the first
decade of its existence. Rising temperatures are affecting
our weather systems. Devastating winds that lash our
coasts and sink vessels are occurring on a more frequent
basis. Perhaps the most profound change is the melting of
sea ice. I am no alarmist here. As a former Captain of the
UK’s Ice Patrol ship, I have seen this at first hand and mon-
itored the scale of the reduction. While these changes
may only directly impact on a few of us on these shores
for the present, it is a very different story if you live in a
nation such as Bangladesh or the Maldives. This might
impinge much more on our consciousness when inhabit-
ants of low-lying nations and atolls are forced to migrate
elsewhere because they have no other choice.
The changes brought about by global warming are
likely to have a far greater impact than we have perhaps
imagined and, although the implications are not all nec-
essarily negative, they need to be understood. While the
melting of the suspended ice of the polar ice cap will not
in itself increase sea levels, its erosion will mean that the
dreams of the early navigators – Frobisher, Franklin,
Cartier and Anson – will be realised in a very different
way than they imagined. At a stroke, 7,000 miles will be
shaved off the distance between Shenzhen in China and
London. This will of course offer potential opportunities
as well as challenges. It may well confer considerable
economic advantages on Britain, as we eventually find
ourselves much closer to the world’s fastest expanding
markets. The impact on other economies, such as South
Africa, might be very different, when trade is no longer
routed around the Cape of Good Hope. Clearly it is not
just economies that will need to gear up and prepare for
this; such changes in our web of maritime interconnect-
ivity will potentially bring about significant political
challenges as China, Russia and Japan join our list of
next-door neighbours.
Global Policy Volume 2 . Issue 3 . October 2011
Global Policy (2011) 2:3 doi: 10.1111/j.1758-5899.2011.00126.x ª2011 Crown copyright
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