4 ms·

A couple of observations I thought were interesting: Very few ships travel around the southern tip of South America A corrupted data point sends it flying acr

by cjslep 10y ago

A couple of observations I thought were interesting: Very few ships travel around the southern tip of South America A corrupted data point sends it flying across Russia and into Southern Europe. A lone ship travelling to Svalbard. Multiple ships travelling in rivers deep into Russia. Control of the nine-dash-line area would yield huge economic influence to the controller.

sitharus 10y ago
The southern tip of South America is known as Cape Horn (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Horn https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Horn). It's an unpredictable and dangerous area, hence the popularity of the Panama Canal. Russia is huge, hence a lot of river shipping. Control of the seas would bring a lot of influence, hence the British control of Gibraltar and the complex history of the Suez Canal.
- ChoHag 10y ago
  > Control of the seas would bring a lot of influence, hence the British You can stop there.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
jcranmer 10y ago
> Very few ships travel around the southern tip of South America The latitudes between Cape Horn and the Antarctic Peninsula are the only latitudes that have no land (barring the area around the North Pole, which are usually locked in sea ice). As a result, there is a very strong current and very strong winds that make shipping dangerous. Note that most ships prefer the Straits of Magellan--a cramped, dangerous corridor, to passing the open water south of Cape Horn, which should tell you just how dangerous the area is. > Control of the nine-dash-line area would yield huge economic influence to the controller. The Strait of Malacca is the real chokepoint, not the South China Sea. The concerns about the South China Sea are largely related to natural resources that may lie in the area. It should come as no surprise that Malacca was traditionally the worst area for piracy--before they started cracking down on it in the early 2000's, it was pretty much as bad as the Somali hijackings that gripped press (and those made press largely because the hijackings had spread from the Gulf of Aden, a consistent pirate menace as far back as Roman times, to the Indian Ocean off of Somalia).
tajen 10y ago
Note that I'd expect to see the influence of ice floe in the Bering Sea (=from Alaska to Russia, the most used channel should change latitude depending on the ice coverage in winter), but I don't see where the ice limit could be. Do they have icebreakers to keep the channel open?

by cjslep 10y ago

sitharus 10y ago

The southern tip of South America is known as Cape Horn (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Horn https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Horn). It's an unpredictable and dangerous area, hence the popularity of the Panama Canal. Russia is huge, hence a lot of river shipping. Control of the seas would bring a lot of influence, hence the British control of Gibraltar and the complex history of the Suez Canal.

ChoHag 10y ago
> Control of the seas would bring a lot of influence, hence the British You can stop there.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

jcranmer 10y ago

> Very few ships travel around the southern tip of South America The latitudes between Cape Horn and the Antarctic Peninsula are the only latitudes that have no land (barring the area around the North Pole, which are usually locked in sea ice). As a result, there is a very strong current and very strong winds that make shipping dangerous. Note that most ships prefer the Straits of Magellan--a cramped, dangerous corridor, to passing the open water south of Cape Horn, which should tell you just how dangerous the area is. > Control of the nine-dash-line area would yield huge economic influence to the controller. The Strait of Malacca is the real chokepoint, not the South China Sea. The concerns about the South China Sea are largely related to natural resources that may lie in the area. It should come as no surprise that Malacca was traditionally the worst area for piracy--before they started cracking down on it in the early 2000's, it was pretty much as bad as the Somali hijackings that gripped press (and those made press largely because the hijackings had spread from the Gulf of Aden, a consistent pirate menace as far back as Roman times, to the Indian Ocean off of Somalia).

tajen 10y ago

Note that I'd expect to see the influence of ice floe in the Bering Sea (=from Alaska to Russia, the most used channel should change latitude depending on the ice coverage in winter), but I don't see where the ice limit could be. Do they have icebreakers to keep the channel open?