As sites of trade, migration, and warfare, the world’s seas are natural geopolitical hotspots. Some, such as the South China Sea, have become battlegrounds of great-power competition. Others, such as the Red Sea, have recent histories that read, in researcher Nicholas W. Stephenson Smith’s words, “like a macabre thriller.”
Over the years, Foreign Policy has covered pirate attacks, naval battles, migrant journeys, and diplomatic posturing across the world’s seas. This edition of Flash Points dives into five of those seas, exploring how they are shaping, and being shaped by, geopolitics today.—Chloe Hadavas
Welcome to the Black Sea Era of War
It has been the world’s bloodiest body of water since the Cold War—and not just because of Ukraine, Maximilian Hess writes.
The United States Is Deeply Invested in the South China Sea
As China postures, Washington remains committed, Gregory B. Poling writes.
How the Red Sea Became a Trap
From piracy to the Ever Given, colonialism left hard scars, Nicholas W. Stephenson Smith writes.
The Next Mediterranean Migration Crisis Will Be Worse
A new book tells the forgotten story of migrants stranded in Libya amid United Nations incompetence and Western indifference, Rhoda Feng writes.
NATO Is Dangerously Exposed in the Baltic
NATO needs to bolster, not downsize, its flimsy defenses, Edward Lucas writes.