Freedom of navigation: another pillar of the postwar world order is crumbling

Since Trump’s return to power, we have commented on the accelerating decline of US imperialism. The pillars of the postwar world order are rapidly crumbling – or even collapsing outright.

The crisis of capitalism and shifts in the balance of power among imperialist powers are undermining key elements of the world order based on US hegemony, such as the system of the dollar, the US military aegis over Europe, and the liberal ‘rules-based’ system of international relations under the auspices of the United Nations.

Today, as Iran holds the United States in a chokehold with its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, we are witnessing the collapse of another pillar of this world order: American hegemony over the seas.

In response to the US-Israeli imperialist attack, Iran played its strongest card by imposing a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz. Iran now claims the right to charge a toll for crossing the strait.

Given the importance of this maritime transit route for global trade, the results have been devastating. It has caused a spike in gasoline prices and fuel shortages in a number of countries, as well as shortages of essential products for various industries, such as fertiliser, sulfur, helium, and so on. If the blockade continues, it risks triggering a global recession.

For now, the United States has managed to avoid the worst effects of the crisis by drawing on its oil reserves, but this situation cannot last forever. US strategic reserves are now at their lowest level since 1982. The price of diesel recently reached a record high, putting pressure on industries like trucking and agriculture.

The United States and its allies have condemned the Iranian blockade in the name of the principle of freedom of navigation under international law. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated:

“What is at stake here is not simply the issue of what’s happening in the Straits of Hormuz [sic]. It’s a very fundamental principle about freedom of navigation. And if that is threatened, then I think the global economy is threatened and the rules which have underpinned 150 years of international trade and commerce are also threatened”

This kind of call to defend freedom of navigation has been repeated ad nauseam by the entire political establishment in the West. In May, a resolution signed by 112 countries was submitted to the UN calling for respect for freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.

Jean-Noël Barrot, France’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, stated that an Iranian toll on the strait would be unacceptable, because “freedom of navigation in international waters is a common good – a common good of humanity – that must not be impeded by any obstacle or right of passage.” Moreover, the French made a big fuss about sending a joint naval force with the United Kingdom to reopen the strait… as soon as the strait reopens!

There is a serious dose of hypocrisy in this kind of rhetoric. Despite all their outcries about the need to defend freedom of navigation, neither the United States nor its European allies respect this principle. The United States itself is currently imposing a blockade on Iran, with the explicit aim of inflicting collective punishment on the Iranian people.

Earlier this year, as part of their campaign to topple Maduro’s government, the United States imposed an oil blockade on Venezuela. They seized seven Venezuelan oil tankers in what amounted to a full-scale campaign of piracy.

Furthermore, under the flimsy pretext of cracking down on drug trafficking, the Trump administration has also waged a completely criminal campaign of bombing boats in the Caribbean and along the west coast of the Americas. At least 59 boats have been attacked, resulting in 200 deaths, many of whom were innocent fishermen. In at least one case, Hegseth himself ordered a callous double-tap strike to finish off survivors.

We also see this double standard in the European-led campaign to seize ships suspected of carrying oil from Russia. So far, ten ships have been seized, and hundreds more sanctioned, as part of the US and European sanctions campaign against Russia. Freedom of navigation, that “common good of humanity,” can apparently be waived when it comes to Russia.

The US seized seven Venezuelan oil tankers in what amounted to a full-scale campaign of piracy / Image: own work

Neither is freedom of navigation in international waters a principle respected by America’s rabid attack dog, Israel. It has imposed a criminal naval blockade against Gaza to prevent any humanitarian aid from entering the starving Palestinian enclave.

In international waters, the Zionist state attacked and kidnapped the crews of the solidarity flotillas that were attempting to break this blockade – acts that are completely illegal under international law. Curiously, neither France nor the United Kingdom proposed an international naval force to break this blockade!

Behind this hypocrisy lies the fact that this freedom – as with the rest of ‘international law’ – exists only to the extent that it serves the interests of the imperialist powers, particularly the United States. When Rubio speaks of the “very fundamental principle of freedom of navigation,” he means the “very fundamental principle” of US dominance over the seas.

By blocking the Strait of Hormuz without the United States being able to do anything about it, Iran is challenging that dominance and inflicting a stinging humiliation on the world’s leading imperialist power.

No matter what Trump says – he has declared the war over, or nearly over, at least 32 times – things are not going well for the United States. The war has been going on for six months now, and there is no sign that things are getting better for the Americans; on the contrary.

The Americans have suffered significant damage to their bases in the region. According to an estimate by The Washington Post, at least 228 structures and pieces of equipment at 15 US bases have been destroyed or damaged during the war, including a major radar system crucial for anti-air defences, worth $300 million.

The US naval base in Bahrain was rendered inoperable by Iranian attacks, forcing the US Navy to relocate the logistical hub for its operations in the Middle East to Diego Garcia, a remote base in the Indian Ocean, which is complicating all its operations.

Meanwhile, the United States seems impotent in the face of Iran’s blockade.

This is all the more evident when one considers that this is not the first time Iran and the United States have been at war over the Strait of Hormuz. During an episode sometimes referred to as the ‘Tanker War’, which took place from 1986 to 1988 during the Iran-Iraq War, Iran attempted to block the strait. But at the time, the United States was able to break the Iranian blockade without much difficulty and escort oil tankers through.

The United States’ powerlessness in the face of Iran is partly a result of upheavals in military technology. The emergence of the drone as the indispensable weapon of war in our time is a factor in the ‘democratisation’ of war, enabling weaker states to stand up to the American colossus. Even tiny Yemen is capable of blocking the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and closing off the Red Sea thanks to an arsenal of drones.

The powerful US conventional navy, with its large ships and aircraft carriers, is ill-suited to counter a fleet of inexpensive, mass-produced, remotely piloted vehicles. The low production cost of aerial and naval drones makes it possible to deploy them in large numbers, thereby easily blocking the passage of any ship.

The Iranians don't need to be able to directly confront US forces to block the strait – they just need to pose a credible threat so that commercial ships won't take their chances.

While US conventional forces can escort ships and reopen a naval passage against drones, doing so comes at a disproportionate cost. Drones cost as little as $20,000 each, whereas the missiles used to destroy them can cost up to $2 million.

Iran isn’t just blocking the Strait of Hormuz – it’s also laying bare the limits of American power, revealing its decline. Iran’s cheap drones are depleting the United States' stockpile of interceptor missiles. Three-fifths of its Patriot missiles and half of its THAAD missiles have been used – a stockpile that could take years to replenish.

This is already having tangible effects, as the Americans are thus forced to take these missiles away from the Ukrainian front to reinforce the Iranian front, leading to heavy losses for the Ukrainians. According to US officials, the shortage in Europe is now “beyond critical.” Similarly, the Americans have had to draw on their stockpiles of interceptors in South Korea.

The war is also depleting the morale of American troops, as the crisis on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln reveals. Unable to dock in Bahrain due to Iranian attacks, it was deployed for nearly nine months with only one one-day port stop. The sailors were stuck at sea in conditions so deplorable – such as a lack of food or clean water, and mould-covered showers and toilets – that some reportedly attempted to jump overboard.

Under pressure from the sailors’ families, the aircraft carrier was finally brought back to port in Thailand. But it had to be replaced. On paper, the United States has 11 aircraft carriers – almost as many as all other countries combined. In reality, one of them, the USS Nimitz, is set to be decommissioned, and six others are undergoing repairs. Aside from the Abraham Lincoln, that leaves only three operational aircraft carriers.

To bring this mission to a close, the USS George Washington, deployed near Japan in the Pacific, was sent to relieve the Lincoln. As a result, this region – which is crucial for the United States, given that it views China as its main rival – is now exposed.

But America’s humiliation in Iran is only an expression of a broader process: unchallenged US naval domination has ended. This is revealed starkly in comparison to China.

America’s humiliation in Iran is only an expression of a broader process: unchallenged US naval domination has ended / Image: public domain

The US Navy has declined over time. The size of the US Navy has been cut in half since the 1980s and now stands at barely 300 ships. This does not take into account the fleet’s attrition rate, which is expected to result in the decommissioning of 213 ships by 2040.

Today, the Chinese Navy is larger than the US Navy in terms of the number of ships.

The US Navy remains more powerful in terms of tonnage – that is, US ships are fewer in number but are larger and more powerful. A ship’s tonnage is significant because it determines the ship’s effective range and its possible firepower.

The enormous tonnage of the US fleet enables it to project power to the other side of the globe. That is an indispensable prerequisite for global US hegemony.

But China does not need to go that far. Its aims, at least for now, are more limited. Moreover, this factor is becoming less important in the age of drone and missile warfare. In a potential showdown, China would rely far more on its supersonic missiles to sink the US Navy than it would on its own fleet.

At the same time, China’s naval power is growing much faster than that of the United States. The US Navy has remained at just under 300 ships for the past 20 years, while the Chinese Navy has grown from just over 200 to 330 ships during the same period. In 2023, while China added 30 ships to its fleet, the United States added two.

This is because the shipbuilding industry in China dwarfs the United States. Its shipbuilding capacity is perhaps 200 times greater.

As a US foreign policy analyst testified before the US House Foreign Affairs East Asia and Pacific Subcommittee:

“A single state-owned conglomerate, the China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), builds more commercial vessels by tonnage each year than the entire US shipbuilding industry has produced since the end of World War II.”

Of China’s 307 shipyards, a large part are dual-use – serving both civilian and military purposes. As such, China can put its large civilian naval industry to use in building military ships.

By comparison, the United States has seven military shipyards used for construction and four used for maintenance and repair.

These are largely problems of capitalism in its decaying imperialist phase. The shipbuilding industry is notoriously unstable, dependent on massive contracts that come and go. Private shipyards are therefore highly vulnerable to the chaos of the capitalist market, which has led to the gradual closure of American shipyards.

The number of shipyards capable of building large seagoing vessels has fallen by 80 percent since 1950. Some of the surviving shipyards date back to the 19th century, and many were built during the shipbuilding boom during World War II.

And that’s not the only problem facing the US shipbuilding industry. In particular, it faces a chronic shortage of skilled labour – with approximately 140,000 current job openings – and turnover rates as high as 30 percent in trades such as welding. This is in part due to low wages (often around $24 an hour) which do not reflect the challenging nature of the work.

The industry is also facing a severe and persistent shortage of replacement parts, which in turn reflects the broader decline of the manufacturing sector. This results in production delays, further reducing productivity.

The low productivity of the US shipbuilding industry also affects fleet maintenance and repairs. According to a report by the Center for Maritime Strategy, the US Navy is facing a massive backlog of repairs:

“Maintenance delays on aircraft carrier and submarine repairs from 2015 to 2019 resulted in a total of 7,424 days that those vessels were unavailable for operations – the equivalent of losing half an aircraft carrier and three submarines each year. Roughly a third of America’s submarines are out of service due to maintenance or repair at any given time”.

By relocating its industries to countries with cheaper labour, US imperialism has effectively sawed off the branch on which it sat – the powerful shipbuilding industry on which its military might depended. And the bosses’ race for profits, which constantly drives wages down, has destroyed the living conditions of a skilled workforce capable of building and maintaining its ships.

This, in fact, explains why the United States recently abandoned its more-than-a-century-old policy of building warships domestically. It is now considering having ships built in South Korea, Japan, or Turkey.

But China – thanks to state-guided investment and elements of planning of the economy that still exist – has been able to consciously invest in and develop its shipbuilding industry over decades. China’s share of global commercial shipbuilding output thus rose from 5 percent to 53 percent between 2000 and 2025. It now leads the world in commercial shipbuilding. These civilian capabilities are being applied to the military.

Similarly, in the past, US military dominance relied largely on a huge technological gap with its adversaries – particularly in telecommunications, radar, and geolocation technologies, among others. That gap is rapidly narrowing.

For example, China is now the second country to possess an electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS) for aircraft carriers. In recent years, China has developed fifth-generation stealth fighter jets, the J-20 and the J-35, similar to the famous F-35, considered the state-of-the-art in military aircraft. It appears that the radars supplied by China to Iran played an important role in Iran’s air defence during the war and prevented the United States from establishing the total air superiority it had counted on.

In this sense, the decline of US naval power is a result of the decline of US imperialism. The United States’ adversaries are catching up with it – or in some fields, surpassing it – particularly with regard to industry and technology. China is now on par with or ahead of the United States in a wide range of industries, such as AI, electric vehicles, critical minerals, and other cutting-edge technologies. This is reflected in the military sphere.

This development is all the more significant given that US dominance of the seas was one of the pillars of the postwar world order.

Naval supremacy, combined with hundreds of military bases around the world, was a necessary condition for the United States becoming a truly global power / Image: public domain

Before World War II, the seas were the scene of regular confrontations between rival imperialists between rival imperialists. The greatest imperialist power until the early 20th century was the British Empire, which possessed the world’s leading navy. But as it entered into decline, the great powers entered into a naval arms race.

During World War I, the seas were a major battlefield. Britain sought to maintain a blockade against Germany, which it in turn attempted to break using its famous U-boat submarines.

With Germany’s defeat, the United States became the United Kingdom’s main rival. A series of treaties (the Washington Naval Treaty, later the London Naval Treaties) were adopted in an effort to limit their arms race.

But at the end of World War II, the United States had become the dominant imperialist power. The US economy was by far the largest in the world at the time, accounting for about 50 percent of global GDP. American goods flooded the world market. US imperialism set about establishing a new world order that worked to its advantage.

That dominance was backed by its supreme military power, particularly at sea. At the end of World War II, the US Navy was by far the strongest in the world, operating nearly 6,800 warships, including 88 aircraft carriers. Although the size of the fleet was immediately reduced after the war – from 6,800 to 842 ships in 1947 – and continued to decline over time, it remained by far the dominant navy throughout the postwar period.

This naval supremacy, combined with hundreds of military bases around the world, was a necessary condition for the United States becoming a truly global power, capable of projecting its influence to the four corners of the globe.

It used its navy to establish its domination as the leading imperialist power, and to crush countries that drew too close to the USSR or refused to bow to America’s dictates. This can be seen in infamous naval operations, such as the decisive landing in Incheon during the Korean War, the blockade of Cuba during the 1962 missile crisis, and the mining of Vietnamese ports in 1972.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the USSR began developing naval weapons capable of rivalling those of the United States. But this was cut short by its collapse. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States was virtually unchallenged on the seas.

This domination over the seas brought to a close the anarchic situation that had existed in the era of inter-imperialist competition.

With one world power guarding the world's waterways, trade was free to develop to a hitherto unprecedented extent. Just as the dollar system based on the Bretton Woods Agreement provided the world market with a stable financial basis, America’s unchallenged naval power provided stability to seaborne trade. Together, these laid the foundations for globalisation and the postwar economic boom. As naval historian Geoffrey Till put it:

“Globalisation depends absolutely on the free flow of trade – and this goes largely by sea. For this reason alone, seapower is at the heart of the globalisation process in a way that land and air power are not.”

Under America’s watch, the volume of goods exported by sea rose from approximately one billion metric tons in 1955 to 11 billion metric tons in 2021. The seas remain crucial to global trade. Today, approximately 80 percent of the volume and 50 percent of the value of global trade passes through the seas.

To illustrate this point, consider the question that some people have raised in response to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz: why wasn’t the strait simply bypassed by land?

The answer is that the volume of goods that can be transported by sea is incomparable to that of other modes of transportation. A tanker truck can carry a few hundred barrels of oil. A tanker train can carry between 50,000 and 90,000 barrels. A VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier), such as those passing through the Strait of Hormuz, has a capacity of approximately 2 million barrels of oil.

The United States – at the heart of global trade, its goods and capital flooding the world market – was the main beneficiary of this process. Ensuring the stability of maritime trade was therefore one of the United States’ key interests in the postwar period.

And just as they imposed ‘free trade’ agreements and the dismantling of trade barriers to gain access to markets around the world – at gunpoint if necessary – the Americans ensured freedom of navigation (for themselves) with the help of warships.

For example, since 1979, US imperialism has routinely conducted what it calls ‘Freedom of Navigation Operational Assertions’ (FONA) in order to assert the right of its ships to go anywhere.

These operations involve sending warships to intimidate a country when it puts what the United States considers to be restrictions on freedom of navigation. The US typically conducts about five to 15 such operations per year – including against its allies. In some years, they have carried out as many as 40.

The United States justifies these FONA operations by claiming that they are to protect international law, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. In reality, the United States has never signed that convention. It is the biggest violator of international law. Rather, these operations amount to imposing its right to move freely anywhere on the planet without restriction.

Multiple countries, like the Maldives and Malaysia, for example, have demanded that warships seek permission before entering their territorial waters. Each time, the United States has responded by sending warships to assert its presence, like a corrupt police officer making the rounds, baton in hand.

In the words of a former Judge Advocate General of the Navy, these FONA operations are “an ‘in your face’, ‘rub your nose in it’ operation that lets people know who is the boss. At least when it comes to FON – the US does serve as the world’s cop.”

This is not to say that the US-imposed postwar order represented true freedom of navigation: as we have seen, the United States and its allies did not hesitate to impose their imperialist interests at gunpoint. But the European powers, along with Japan – which had previously been at war with one another – were united in an inter-imperialist alliance under the auspices of the United States, which had the effect of stabilising the situation on the seas.

But today, as American imperialism wanes and rival powers such as China and Russia emerge, we are returning to a situation in which the seas are the subject of a struggle that is growing increasingly intense.

As a result, one of the pillars of global trade – and thus of the global economy – is crumbling dangerously. The pandemic, followed by the trade war, had already sparked a shift toward the repatriation of supply chains – toward ‘reshoring’ and ‘friendshoring’. The breakdown of control over the seas into spheres of influence of competing imperialist powers will further reinforce this trend.

One of Iran’s main demands is the right to charge a toll for transit through the Strait of Hormuz. Under international law, such tolls cannot be charged for passage through a natural waterway (whereas they are permitted for artificial maritime passages, such as the Suez and Panama Canals). The Iranians have given themselves legal cover by claiming they intend to charge ‘environmental fees’ not tolls, but the difference is semantic.

One of Iran’s main demands is the right to charge a toll for transit through the Strait of Hormuz / Image: own work

As a result, many countries have raised concerns that a fee to pass through Hormuz could set a dangerous precedent. Coastal states located near strategic passageways – such as the Strait of Gibraltar, which provides access to the Mediterranean; the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of Africa; or the Øresund between Denmark and Sweden – could hypothetically be encouraged to demand tolls as well. In fact, the abolition of tolls for crossing the Øresund in 1857 is viewed as one of the key moments in the emergence of the principle of freedom of navigation.

Shortly after the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz began in April, Indonesia’s finance minister raised the possibility of imposing a toll on the Strait of Malacca, before taking back his comments. This strait, which is jointly managed by Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, is a particularly important bottleneck for global trade. Approximately 30 percent of the world’s oil trade passes through it.

In a letter sent to the UN Secretary-General by eight of the world’s largest shipping associations, the groups expressed concern about the precedent that would be set if Iran were granted the right to impose a toll. They wrote:

“Once such a precedent is established, it becomes increasingly difficult to resist similar measures elsewhere, creating uncertainty for international shipping and global commerce.”

It is difficult to predict exactly what effect such a development would have, and this remains a hypothetical scenario. However, if the practice of imposing tolls were to become widespread, it would add upward pressure on the cost of international freight transport, which would exacerbate the inflation that has persisted for several years now. At a time of rising protectionism and supply chain disruptions, it would deal another blow to globalisation and international trade.

But the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz has already set a far more significant precedent than mere tolls. Iran has shown just how powerful a weapon the closure of a global trade chokepoint can be.

There are 11 maritime chokepoints through which more than five percent of global trade passes that could theoretically be blocked. Seven of these see through more than 10 percent of global trade. As shifts in the balance of forces among imperialist powers cause the geopolitical tectonic plates to shift, tensions are rising and wars are becoming increasingly frequent.

The risk that another chokepoint could be blocked is not far-fetched. Even now, the Strait of Hormuz is not the only chokepoint blocked as a result of war. Yemen is blocking Saudi ships from crossing the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea, to defend itself against Saudi aggression. Ukraine tried to impose a blockade on Russia in the Black Sea, prompting a reciprocal blockade by Russia. The consequences will be severe: Ukraine and Russia are major exporters of a variety of grains, and 90 percent of Ukraine’s grain exports pass through the Black Sea.

This means that three major global trade routes are now blocked, which is already causing shortages and rising fuel and food prices in several regions. The UN recently warned that conflict-driven hunger is reaching record levels.

Other transit routes could still become the focus of a standoff. Recently, China and the United States have been engaged in a legal tug-of-war over control of the Panama Canal. Earlier this year, a Hong Kong-based company that owned a port terminal in the canal was forced to sell it to a US company. In response, China began detaining and inspecting Panamanian-flagged ships calling at its ports at a rate far exceeding the norm – clearly an act of retaliation. This episode was far from a direct confrontation, but it is indicative of the rising tensions surrounding this vital chokepoint for global trade.

Furthermore, the United States has recently signed a military agreement with Indonesia, a development that some have viewed as a move against China. Indeed, Indonesia would be in a position to block the Strait of Malacca, which could deal a severe blow to Beijing. Two-thirds of China’s maritime trade passes through this chokepoint. Such an action would amount to a declaration of war.

The need to find an alternative route to the Strait of Malacca is certainly a factor in China’s growing interest in the Arctic. China now has five icebreakers and plans to build more. A Chinese container shipping company is currently launching the ‘Ice Silk Road’ and sending a ship from China’s east coast to the United Kingdom, travelling along Russia’s northern coast.

With climate change and the melting of the ice cap, new shipping routes are opening up in the Arctic, and the imperialists’ interest in the region is growing. Increasing instability at sea and risks along traditional trade routes will further fuel this interest.

We are witnessing an arms race, and one country after another is rebuilding its military / Image: public domain

We could go on at length about other regions and waterways that are the subject of growing tensions or have the potential to be used as weapons, such as the Taiwan Strait or the Danish Straits. But the point is that as tensions rise between the imperialist blocs of the United States and its allies on one side, and China, Russia and their allies on the other, the strategic importance of the seas and key chokepoints also grows.

The drums of war have been beating ever louder in recent years. We are witnessing an arms race, and one country after another is rebuilding its military.

In particular, the United States’ traditional allies – such as Canada, Europe, and Japan – can clearly see that their patron is no longer as strong or reliable as it once was, and that they can no longer count on it to defend their imperialist interests.

Meanwhile, on the other side, Russia has already proven itself a formidable adversary in Ukraine, China is building a navy that rivals that of the United States, and Iran is inflicting a historic humiliation on the Americans.

The events of the past year will therefore have further convinced the western ruling classes of the need to rapidly rebuild their navies, and of the need to assert control over critical resources, to build up costly stockpiles and to prepare other economic contingencies.

This trend will only accelerate, and politicians serving the capitalist class will use the arguments of maritime security and the need to safeguard trade to justify increased military spending.

While governments are already up to their necks in debt, it is the working class that will be stuck with the bill for these new warships, through austerity measures and attacks on public-sector workers.

And when these purveyors of death actually resort to arms, it is the workers and the poor who pay the price—either through a war-induced surge in the cost of living or with their lives, under the blast of bombs.