By Marcus Havelock
At dawn on October 29, 1956, Egyptian forces detonated explosives along the banks of the Suez Canal. The blast reverberated across the Cold War world: Britain and France, fearing for their oil lifeline, would soon invade; the United States, alarmed at Soviet maneuvering, would force them back. A single narrow waterway had plunged empires into crisis.
The drama of Suez was not unique. Maritime chokepoints have always been levers of power disproportionate to their geography. The Strait of Malacca, scarcely 1.7 miles wide at its narrowest, has determined the fortunes of kingdoms from Srivijaya to Singapore. The Dardanelles, gateway between the Mediterranean and Black Sea, helped trigger the Gallipoli campaign of 1915. Whoever commands the bottlenecks of the world commands trade, energy, and, often, history itself.
Today, a new chokepoint is emerging—not in the deserts of Egypt or the tropics of Southeast Asia, but across the ice-laden waters of the Arctic. As climate change accelerates, once-impenetrable sea ice is retreating, exposing routes that were for centuries the stuff of explorers’ fantasies. The “Northern Sea Route” along Russia’s Siberian coast and the elusive “Northwest Passage” across Canada’s Arctic Archipelago are becoming navigable for longer stretches each summer. Shipping firms calculate that a Rotterdam–Shanghai voyage could be shortened by up to two weeks. In an age where days translate into millions, that is not a marginal gain; it is a strategic revolution.
The New Geography of Power
The parallels to Suez and Malacca are striking. Both of those corridors became critical when technology—steamships, oil tankers—made them indispensable. The Arctic’s opening is likewise a product of transformation, though this time the engine is not industrial innovation but planetary warming.
Already, Moscow treats the Northern Sea Route as a national asset, demanding permits and escort fees, and stationing military outposts along its shores. China, though thousands of miles away, has declared itself a “near-Arctic state,” investing in icebreakers and joint ventures with Russian port operators. NATO, belatedly, has begun to rehearse operations in the High North. The choreography is familiar: powers maneuvering for control of a corridor before its strategic value is fully realized.
Continuities of Vulnerability
But chokepoints are not merely prizes; they are liabilities. The same narrowness that bestows leverage also invites disruption. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a single vessel—the Ever Given—lodged in the Suez Canal, froze 12 percent of global trade. A future accident or deliberate sabotage in the Arctic could strand fleets without the infrastructure redundancy available in warmer seas. Harbors are sparse, rescue capacity thin, weather unpredictable. In this sense, the Arctic chokepoint is even more fragile than its historic predecessors.
The Human Dimension
Beneath the cartographic drama lie lives often forgotten in the grand strategy narrative. Indigenous communities who have navigated these waters for millennia now face incursions of tanker traffic through hunting grounds and fragile ecosystems. Oil spill response in subzero waters is measured not in hours but in impossibilities. The calculus of empires rarely pauses to consider whose homes sit along the maps they redraw.
A Future Written in Ice
The great contests over Suez and Malacca remind us that global order often hinges on the narrowest of straits. The Arctic, once shielded by ice, is now entering that lineage. If history is any guide, its future will not be determined solely by tonnage and transit times, but by the rivalries it ignites and the vulnerabilities it exposes.
The world’s attention is once again narrowing to a bottleneck. And as before, the consequences will be felt far beyond its shores.
