Ep 227 | Sal Mercogliano
It’s Not Just Hormuz: The Chokepoints Changing Global Shipping Forever
Description
Roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and more than a tenth of all global trade has been navigating a literal minefield, a wary insurance industry, and whipsawing geopolitics since late February of this year. But looking beyond the Strait of Hormuz closure itself, the same pattern threatens every critical chokepoint: passages open to all shipping for the past 80 years are becoming strategic assets within a geopolitical power struggle. If we continue this trend, what does a more fragmented, higher-cost, higher-risk maritime system mean for the norms and safety of the shipping industry, and what are the ripple effects for global trade?
In this episode, Nate is joined by maritime historian and former merchant mariner, Sal Mercogliano, to break down what the ongoing events in the Strait of Hormuz reveal about the state of global shipping and trade. Sal traces how the rise of unregistered “dark fleet” tankers and increasing risk – and subsequent cost – of maritime trade are reshaping the safety and stability of shipping across the globe. He also walks through who actually “owns” the Strait of Hormuz, the improvised insurance and security arrangements now propping up tanker traffic, and the human toll on the roughly 20,000 mariners who have been stranded, attacked, or killed since the crisis began. Ultimately, Sal examines how the 80-year-old norm of ‘freedom of the seas’ is being tested by this standoff, exposing the fragile foundation of our hyper-complex, just-in-time shipping system.
Why does the volume and velocity of modern trade make a conflict like the one in the Strait of Hormuz so much more consequential than at any other time in history? Is “might makes right” becoming the central pillar governing the world’s oceans, and if so, what does that mean for the cost of everything that arrives by ship? And what does this conflict reveal about the stability of our highly interdependent system as global powers continue to fracture and isolate?
About Sal Mercogliano
Dr. Salvatore R. Mercogliano is an associate professor of history at Campbell University in North Carolina and adjunct professor at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. He holds a bachelor of science in marine transportation from the State University of New York Maritime College, along with a merchant marine deck officer license (unlimited tonnage 2nd mate), a master’s in maritime history and nautical archaeology from East Carolina University, and a Ph.D. in military and naval history from the University of Alabama. He is also the host of the popular podcast What’s Going on With Shipping, which focuses on Maritime Industry Policy, current events in the Maritime Sector, and Maritime History.
Show Notes & Links to Learn More
Download transcriptThe TGS team puts together these brief references and show notes for the learning and convenience of our listeners. However, most of the points made in episodes hold more nuance than one link can address, and we encourage you to dig deeper into any of these topics and come to your own informed conclusions.
00:00 – Salvatore Mercogliano: Campbell University, US Merchant Marine Academy
03:50 – Strait of Hormuz, Strait of Hormuz crisis
04:12 – Territorial waters and the twelve-nautical-mile limit (more information)
04:28 – UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) (copy of treaty), Right of transit passage
04:52 – Iran and the United States are not UNCLOS signatories
05:01 – Persian Gulf Strait Authority
05:21 – Naval mining of the Strait of Hormuz
05:50 – Traffic separation scheme (shipping lanes)
06:01 – International Maritime Organization (IMO)
06:36 – Minefield as psychological weapon
07:40 – Red Sea Houthi attacks, Black Sea war on shipping
07:51 – Freedom of the seas challenged for the first time since WWII
08:07 – Growth of seaborne trade since 1945
08:31 – Flags of convenience and open ship registries (Liberia, Marshall Islands, Panama)
09:49 – UNCTAD Review of Maritime Transport
10:01 – Correlation between maritime trade and global GDP
10:39 – Containerization and the intermodal shipping container
10:53 – Breakbulk cargo
11:08 – Merchant mariner
11:41 – 2021 Suez Canal obstruction, Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse bridge collapse
11:58 – Maritime choke points (oil choke points)
12:32 – Bab-el-Mandeb strait
13:22 – Seafarer welfare
14:11 – Shipboard evaporators and freshwater generation
14:47 – Starlink at sea
15:15 – COVID crew change crisis
16:14 – Ever Given ship briefly halted 15% of global trade
17:01 – How shipping shapes everyday life, COVID toilet paper shortages, Supply-chain inflation
17:24 – Manhattan finger piers and the shift to container terminals
18:17 – Theory of comparative advantage
18:46 – Autarky and economic self-sufficiency
19:23 – Just-in-time global supply chains, Bunker fuel
19:45 – History of globalization, Roman trade with Han China
20:16 – 2021 Los Angeles and Long Beach port congestion
20:44 – Drayage, Class I railroads, Warehousing
21:25 – 2016 Panama Canal expansion
22:03 – China’s Belt and Road Initiative
22:33 – China’s strategic petroleum reserve
22:49 – Military logistics vs. Commercial just-in-time
24:12 – Red Sea shipping slow to return after ceasefire
25:18 – Marine insurance as the bedrock of shipping
26:03 – Lloyd’s Coffee House
26:37 – Protection and indemnity (P&I) insurance, Hull and machinery insurance, War risk insurance
27:04 – International P&I clubs cover ~90% of shipping
27:47 – The Tanker War of the 1980s, Iran-Iraq War
28:28 – Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC)
30:21 – Mediterranean Shipping Company and the Aponte family
30:38 – Maersk, Greek shipowners
31:28 – Exxon Valdez oil spill and consumer boycott
31:54 – Iran-US memorandum of understanding
32:07 – Iran-Oman talks over joint control of the strait
32:12 – Turkish Straits and Danish Straits as toll precedents
32:27 – Ever Lovely (Evergreen) container ship attacked (WGOW Shipping video on such)
32:41 – Persian Gulf oil exiting via Yanbu and UAE pipelines
33:42 – Russia selling de-sanctioned oil and LNG on the world market
34:05 – Ukrainian naval-drone attacks on Russian tankers, Unmanned surface vessels
34:32 – Panama Canal record traffic
34:52 – Energy, complexity, and the limits of a quick war
35:38 – Stockpiling oil at sea
36:14 – Russian shadow fleet
36:26 – G7 and EU Russian oil price cap enforced through insurance
37:02 – Comoros and Russia’s shadow fleet
37:18 – Stateless vessels
38:09 – Dali ship carried up to $3 billion in insurance coverage
38:25 – UK and France seizing shadow-fleet tankers
39:18 – The Outlaw Sea, The Outlaw Ocean
39:59 – Deep-sea mining dispute
40:23 – US strikes on drug boats off Venezuela
40:32 – Taiwan Strait, Tsushima Strait, Strait of Malacca, Strait of Gibraltar
41:02 – Golden Age of Piracy
42:04 – Port state control inspections
42:09 – US Coast Guard vessel inspections
42:39 – Parallel fleets and the bifurcation of shipping
43:36 – Ship-to-ship transfers off Malaysia
44:36 – Inert gas systems and tanker explosions
45:15 – China’s rise in global shipbuilding
45:48 – China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC)
47:02 – IMO global shipping net-zero framework for 2050
48:07 – Ship recycling and beaching in South Asia
48:31 – Trump administration pushback on the IMO net-zero framework
48:56 – Alternative marine fuels: LNG, Methanol, Ammonia
49:18 – Green shipping corridors
49:43 – Waterworld and its converted supertanker set
49:52 – Oil as the hemoglobin of the global economy
50:09 – 1967-1975 Suez Canal closure
50:35 – Rise of the supertanker
51:28 – Ideal X, the first container ship (1956)
51:44 – CMA CGM and the world’s largest container ships
52:10 – Twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU)
53:56 – MOL Comfort breaking in half (2013)
54:57 – Dry bulk cargo as the largest seaborne trade
55:13 – Pilbara Ports and Port Hedland, Australia
55:43 – Exports by country: Iron ore, Lithium, Copper
56:59 – Capesize bulk carriers and the Cape of Good Hope
57:31 – Fertilizer as a downstream product of oil and gas, Urea, MAP, and DAP
57:39 – Black Sea fertilizer disruption
57:52 – Port of Baltimore coal and fertilizer exports
58:02 – Drake Passage and the Southern Ocean
58:08 – Container losses in heavy seas off South Africa
58:29 – Panama Canal drought, El Niño, and Gatun Lake
59:22 – Record Northern Sea Route throughput
59:41 – Russia’s nuclear-powered icebreakers
59:49 – Northern Sea Route, Bering Strait
1:00:08 – EU plan to end Russian LNG imports by 2027
1:01:17 – Greenland’s strategic importance in the Arctic
1:01:37 – US bases in Greenland since 1940
1:02:00 – Rare earth minerals (The Great Simplification episodes on such RR#22, #207, #127, #58, #39)
1:03:04 – Northwest Passage and Canada’s territorial claim
1:04:07 – UNCLOS Article 37 and transit passage
1:04:41 – Fracturing of the world into rival trading blocs
1:05:19 – Cold War-era separation of capitalist and communist economies
1:06:09 – Chinese mercantilism and the British East India Company analogy
1:06:52 – 2025 tariffs and their impact on China
1:08:48 – US Maritime Action Plan
1:09:39 – Portuguese Cartaz pass system in the 16th-century Indian Ocean
1:10:20 – Navies exist primarily to protect trade
1:10:42 – Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Influence of Sea Power upon History
1:10:51 – British Merchant Marine and control of the choke points
1:11:50 – China’s artificial islands in the South China Sea
1:12:23 – People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and China’s blend of soft and hard sea power
1:12:34 – Barbary pirates and the shores of Tripoli
1:14:04 – Hugo Grotius and the freedom of the seas doctrine
1:14:19 – Woodrow Wilson‘s Fourteen Points and freedom of the seas
1:15:00 – British Empire’s control of maritime choke points, Gibraltar
1:16:26 – UNCLOS dates from 1982
1:17:03 – Illegal fishing and exclusive economic zones (EEZs)
1:17:34 – Reshoring and the limits of globalization
1:17:42 – US as the world’s top navy but 22*nd-ranked merchant marine
1:18:51 – Gasoline priced on the international market
1:18:56 – The Carbon Pulse, Possible future shapes of the Carbon Pulse, Future growth scenarios
1:19:33 – The metacrisis / the more-than-human predicament
1:19:52 – Finite resources and the myth of unlimited growth
1:20:33 – Oil as the decisive resource of World War II
1:20:45 – Diminishing returns and the right-sizing of ships
1:21:19 – Battery-powered, Ammonia-powered, and Autonomous vessels
1:22:28 – 1.8 million seafarers keep the global economy running, Day in the life of a seafarer
1:23:21 – Risk of nuclear weapons use
1:24:11 – The nuclear taboo
1:24:56 – Arab Spring and social-media-era revolutions
1:25:20 – French Revolution and how long stable republics take to form
1:25:51 – Information overload, Frankly’s: #128, #93
1:27:15 – Corporate power compared to the East India Company
1:27:54 – Vietnam War as a nationalistic war
