“Free Seas” Are Not Unraveling — But the System Is Changing Under Pressure

The global maritime system remains open, but operates with less slack, greater volatility, and more variable constraints on access.

By Bruce Kimbrell (Policy Op-Ed)   

A recent Wall Street Journal commentary argues that the “era of free seas is unraveling,” pointing to tensions in the Strait of Hormuz and the possibility of states imposing tolls on global shipping.

It is a compelling narrative, and it captures a real signal. But it overstates the moment.

Three dynamics shape today’s maritime trade environment: crisis, coercion, and market responses that reprice risk across global shipping. These dynamics often appear together, but they are not interchangeable, and they do not point to a single outcome.

In the Strait of Hormuz, what we are seeing is both crisis and coercion amid active military confrontation. This has direct implications for commercial shipping through the region, including attacks, seizures, and efforts to condition transit through tolls or similar demands.

Iran has demonstrated a pattern of such behavior over time. This includes repeated interference with commercial tankers in Gulf waters over the past decade, as reflected in prior tanker harassment and seizure incidents, as well as earlier precedents during the Tanker War.

Separately, there are also quieter costs the system imposes through risk, reflected in insurance premiums, rerouting decisions, and delay exposure embedded in freight rates when security conditions deteriorate. These are sometimes described as payments to transit the seas, but are more precisely understood as market-based risk pricing. This has been particularly visible during disruptions such as the Red Sea shipping crisis and the resulting rise in war-risk premiums.

The distinction matters. Conflating crisis, coercion, and market response creates the impression of a coordinated shift toward monetized sea lanes where none exists.

This Didn’t Start Here

The Strait of Hormuz is not the exception; it is the most visible expression of a broader pattern. Crisis has always spilled into the maritime domain. What is changing is how often, how visibly, and how simultaneously it now occurs.

Access has never been absolute. It has always depended on security presence, enforcement capacity, and shared norms that held the system together—imperfectly but effectively enough under widely accepted rules governing transit through international straits.

Episodes of disruption are not new. At the height of piracy off Somalia, even a U.S.-flagged vessel was seized during the Maersk Alabama hijacking. This underscores that maritime order has been tested, and at times the rules have been broken at the local level before being restored through coordinated international response.

Recognizing the persistence of disruption in the maritime domain in recent years matters. It is equally important to place these developments within a longer historical pattern shaped by shifting global port influence and evolving competition over access and control at sea.

The maritime system we rely on today was built during a period of relative stability, where security was often assumed rather than priced into the cost of global trade. In practice, that burden was disproportionately carried by the United States and its allies and partners.

As global trade expanded, infrastructure concentrated, and more actors gained the capability to operate at sea, that underlying balance has shifted. The result is a system that remains open in principle, but is increasingly shaped by competition over influence, resources, and control.

The conditions that have sustained open maritime access are now under greater strain, reflected in a White House Maritime Action Plan, Congressional National Maritime Strategy guidance, shifts in global port ownership and influence, and findings on shipbuilding capacity and market distortion.

In retrospect, that strain has become easier to see across multiple parts of the system. The Black Sea conflict reshaped grain flows rather than stopping them. The Red Sea attacks forced rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope. Constraints at the Panama Canal slowed throughput and shifted global schedules.

These are not isolated shocks. They reflect a system that continues to function, but with less slack and greater exposure to disruption.

The System Still Works—But Under Pressure

We will not eliminate the risk of crisis or coercion in the maritime domain. Those forces will continue to produce disruption, strain, and varying degrees of control across the maritime trade system.

The good news is we do not have to eliminate all of that risk for the maritime system to function. Routes shift. Costs rise. Capacity tightens. Cargo continues to flow, as reflected in persistent global supply chain pressure trends.

Nonetheless, disruption is becoming more frequent and more sustained. At times, it overlaps with attempts to exert control over contested sea lanes. The cumulative effect places greater drag on system performance. It continues to function, but with less slack, tighter margins, and greater sensitivity to disruption.

Put simply, the system still works—but it is working under more pressure. That pressure is not abstract. It is carried in real time by the mariners and crews who continue to operate through contested waters, heightened risk, and prolonged time at sea.  

The Economic Effects Don’t Stay at Sea

The effects of crisis and coercion do not stay at sea.

As routes lengthen and risk increases, the effects move through the global economy into fuel prices and other costs, consumer prices, and the timing and availability of goods. These pressures show up in everyday ways: higher prices at the gas pump, increased costs on store shelves, and tighter margins across global supply chains.

These dynamics also influence financial and monetary policy decisions. They shape how markets price risk, how firms manage sourcing and inventory, and how central banks assess inflation tied to supply chain performance and broader pressures.

For commercial actors, these shifts translate into harder trade-offs. Companies must balance cost against reliability, speed against security, and efficiency against resilience. Rerouting decisions, inventory strategies, and sourcing diversification are no longer just operational adjustments. They are strategic responses to a system operating under greater uncertainty.

What begins as maritime disruption becomes an economic and national security condition with real downstream effects.

What This Moment Actually Means

The Wall Street Journal picked up on a real signal in the Strait of Hormuz. The risks are real. Attacks, seizures, and escalation are not theoretical. Misreading the signal as evidence that international maritime order is unraveling or that the era of free seas is ending is the problem.

The reality is larger, and it has been building over time.

If the Strait of Hormuz feels like a moment, it does not mark a breakdown in global maritime order. Instead, it reflects a localized breakdown within a system that continues to function.

These developments are best understood not as a transition toward widespread tolls or restricted waterways, but as part of a system that continues to function while absorbing repeated shocks through higher costs, constrained access, and degraded performance.

There is little evidence of a broader move toward imposing costs on transit across the open ocean, an approach that would be difficult to sustain legally, economically, or operationally at global scale. Even the most aggressive recent example reflects a bounded and context-specific attempt to impose control under conditions of conflict, not a scalable model for global maritime practice.

More importantly, these developments are not isolated. They reflect a broader pattern of accumulating strain across the maritime system. That strain is driven by rising global trade, evolving maritime regulatory pressures, shifting control over infrastructure and access, and intensifying competition among states and other actors.

While this dynamic has been building for decades, it has become more pronounced since 2019, beginning with the pandemic-driven supply chain shock and continuing through successive disruptions. The effects of those disruptions, from the pandemic through the Black Sea and Red Sea to current tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, are no longer isolated.  

They now overlap and compound, amplifying system-wide strain.   

Taken together, these patterns suggest a system increasingly defined less by steady-state efficiency and more by how it performs under sustained pressure.

Why This Matters

The maritime environment is part of the backbone of economic security, strategic mobility, and national resilience. Understanding the deeper and broader changes that have been unfolding across the maritime domain over decades—driven by evolving competition, shifting patterns of control, and repeated disruption—will increasingly shape how nations and markets prioritize maritime capacity, access, and resilience.  

More importantly, these dynamics will force trade-offs between cost and security, efficiency and reliability, and speed and control. Those choices will not be made in theory. They will be made in shipping lanes, in boardrooms, and in national policy. 

Misreading the moment risks underestimating the role of the maritime domain in economic performance, national security, and long-term strategic advantage, or making those decisions too late or on the wrong terms.

Commander Bruce Kimbrellis a career naval officer with deployments in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. He has deployed with U.S. Carrier and Expeditionary Strike Groups. He previously served as a Director with the National Security Council at the White House and has supported strategic maritime initiatives as staff for the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations and the Office of the Secretary of the Navy. He also served as a national security and defense staffer for U.S. Congressman Michael Waltz of Florida’s 6^th Congressional District.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Navy, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

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