When we think about the next frontier for humanity, we think about space. However, closer to home, the world’s seas are perhaps undergoing more important exploration. Artificial island construction is gaining momentum in struggles over sovereignty, rapid urbanization pushes cities to expand into the sea, and a great game for undersea resources is unfolding. The Blue Frontier still awaits us.
Global maritime history has always been characterized by struggles over securing trading posts (e.g. colonialism, China’s BRI) and harnessing natural resources (e.g. oil, food, metals). In line with this history, the current momentum behind artificial island construction, land reclamation, and underwater resource exploration is driven by several trends, and could, once again, have profound geopolitical implications.Artificial islands and land reclamation projects have become symbols of modernity, but their origin actually dates back millennia. In prehistoric Scotland and Ireland, and in the city of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec predecessor of Mexico City, people built islands for ceremonial or political purposes. Modern-day artificial islands, however, serve many functions, such as relieving overcrowded cities, airports, windfarms, oil drilling and tourism. As a result, demand for dredgers, massive ships that lay the foundation for artificial islands, is rising rapidly. Most importantly, land reclamation (extending land into the sea) is no different from artificial islands: both serve to expand valuable landmass and, whether intentional or not, function as claims to sovereignty. Indeed, while China angers its neighbors by building artificial islands in disputed territories, Malaysia and Indonesia have stopped exporting sand to Singapore because the city-state’s land reclamation is threatening their livelihoods.While we are increasingly raising the seabed to build land, we are also diving down to uncover the resources the seas have to offer. While material dug up in a typical copper or gold mine on land only yields a tiny fraction of useful metal, hydrothermal vents are much richer. Hence, deep-sea mining is gaining momentum. A Japanese expedition off Okinawa discovered enough zinc to keep Japan supplied for an entire year. Nautilus Minerals forecasts that an undersea industry of copper could be worth $30bn a year by 2030. Meanwhile, the food industry could be revolutionized by a shift from land to water as well. Aquaponics, systems which combine aquaculture (raising aquatic animals) with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water), need neither natural light nor soil and only one-third the water of organic farming.These struggles over sovereignty and exploration for resources could have profound geopolitical implications. We are used to think of the “freedom of the seas”, a concept introduced by the Dutch legal scholar Hugo Grotius in his 1609 work Mare Liberum (open sea). However, the freedom of the high seas as defined by UNCLOS does not pertain to areas of overlapping claims that cause legal friction. Instead, we live in the world of Mare Clausum (closed sea) as defined by English jurist John Selden, who responded to Grotius within two decades in order to affirm control over offshore water. We will, indeed, increasingly see states claim sovereignty in hotspots like the Arctic, the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. However, artificial islands are massively expensive. Hence, while land reclamation for global cities will continue, struggles over sovereignty could increasingly be determined by “mobile sovereignty” (e.g. oil rigs, tankers and other structures). In line with this trend, floating oil platforms and cruise ships could become much more than they are now. All in all, while the hype for space exploration continues (e.g. asteroid mining, space tourism), such innovation on the seas could have a much more profound impact in the coming years.
