Remember Christopher Columbus or the pirates from your primary school history lessons? It might feel like maritime adventures belong to the past. But in reality, the seas are just as central to our world today as they were centuries ago.

From wooden ships to global lifelines

We have moved far beyond wooden sailboats, yet the oceans remain the backbone of globalisation. Every time you order something online or stream a show, you are relying on maritime systems. Around 90% of global trade travels by sea, and even more surprisingly, about 99% of global data flows through submarine cables lying on the ocean floor. There are several major routes across the entire globe (or should I say across all oceans!), such as the Transatlantic submarine cable routes connecting Europe and the Americas, or the trading routes linking Europe to Asia via the Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal.

So yes, the seas connect everything. But are they safe? Not entirely.

Piracy: not just a thing of the past

When we hear the word “pirates” we usually think of Johnny Depp in the Pirates of the Caribbean or of men with wooden legs, eye patches and parrots, but today they are far more modern. The pirates of today operate with speedboats, GPS, and automatic weapons. Regions like the Gulf of Guinea or the Horn of Africa still experience attacks on cargo ships, proof that maritime trade remains vulnerable.

Controlling the seas = controlling power

Because so many things depend on maritime routes, countries compete to control them. Strategic chokepoints are especially important. Today, the Strait of Hormuz is at the centre of political debates, illustrating how much an area of water can influence global politics. In fact, control over these areas equals influence over global trade.

And then there is the issue of “who owns what”. In the South China Sea, for example, official delimitations of a country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)  are not enough to keep tensions down. These EEZ are the maritime areas in which a country is allowed to exploit, conserve, and manage natural resources, and develop renewable energy sources. According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), this area extends 200 nautical miles (or 370 km) from a country’s shoreline. However, in some cases, the official delimitation of one country will overlap another country’s official EEZ, this is where tensions get very real. Instead of open war, states often use indirect methods to assert their power. For example, ships are sometimes pushed away using water cannons or other “grey-zone” tactics, actions that stay below the level of actual warfare but still send a strong message. It might sound a bit ridiculous, but it shows how modern conflicts at sea are fought.

A new chapter: the Arctic race

Climate change is opening up a whole new maritime frontier: the Arctic. As the ice melts, routes that used to be impossible to travel by are now becoming usable. The two main ones are the Northern Sea Route, connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and the Northwest Passage, which extends from the Barents Sea (located at the northern borders of Norway and Russia) to the Bering Strait (between the far eastern end of Russia and Alaska) along Russia’s Arctic coastline. These new routes can seriously shorten trips between Europe and Asia, saving both time and fuel.

These routes also present new challenges. They are risky due to harsh weather, tricky navigation, and a high chance of environmental damage if something goes wrong. On top of that, countries are starting to compete over who controls these new paths.

So basically, the Arctic is not just melting, it is turning into the next big geopolitical hotspot.

So are we really “setting sail” again?

In a way, yes, even if it does not look the way it did in the old pirate stories, the oceans are still where power is played out. The ships got bigger, the pirates were modernized, and the stakes got way higher, but the general idea? Pretty much the same. Just fewer parrots and more geopolitics.