Maritime Chokepoints and the Geopolitics of Global Vulnerability

This article examines maritime chokepoints as structures of systemic vulnerability rather than merely as geographical constraints upon navigation. It argues that the strategic significance of a chokepoint must be assessed through the interaction of geography, commercial dependence, energy security, naval power, infrastructure, political authority and the availability of alternative routes. Particular attention is given to the distinction between established chokepoints and what this study describes as latent chokepoints: maritime passages whose present commercial importance may remain comparatively limited but whose strategic value can increase rapidly as environmental, technological and geopolitical conditions change. The Bering Strait provides the principal contemporary example. Situated between the United States and the Russian Federation and connecting the Pacific and Arctic maritime spaces, Bering may acquire substantially greater geopolitical importance as Arctic navigation develops and the strategic interaction of the United States, Russia and China increasingly extends northwards. The article therefore proposes that maritime geopolitics must consider not only where global vulnerability is concentrated today, but where the geography of vulnerability may be forming for tomorrow.