1 day Ago By Rich Lowry
Is it worth it to the United States to enforce freedom of navigation on the seas? That question was a subplot in the Trump administration’s instantly famous leaked Signal chat over an operation to hit Houthi targets in Yemen. Vice President JD Vance expressed skepticism, pointing out that more European than US trade passes through the Suez Canal. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, on the other hand, were strongly in favor.
Hegseth, correctly, called freedom of navigation “a core national interest.” Open sea lanes are necessary to US commercial shipping and trade (80% of all global trade is carried by ocean), as well as to lines of communication with our allies and US bases overseas. As a strategy document from US Joint Forces Command put it a few years ago, “The crucial enabler for America’s ability to project its military power for the past six decades has been its almost complete control over the global commons.
” The fact is, President Trump’s decision to hit the Houthis toward the goal of fully freeing the Red Sea to shipping again was fundamentally American. We’ve long recognized the wisdom of the great 17th Century English adventurer Walter Raleigh when he said, “For whosoever commands the sea commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself.” We’ve acted on that insight from the beginning of our existence as a nation.
We fought the Quasi War with France beginning in 1798 during the John Adams administration over French privateers seizing our shipping in the Caribbean. A few years later, President Thomas Jefferson reacted similarly to the Barbary states harassing European and American shipping in the Mediterranean. He ordered US ships to go after the corsairs hammer and tongs, urging our commander to “chastise their insolence — by sinking, burning or destroying their ships & vessels wherever you shall find them.
” Jefferson’s actions were in keeping with his belief that we should be a trading nation, and it’d only be possible with naval protection. As he had put it earlier in a letter to James Monroe, “this will require a protecting force on the sea. Otherwise the smallest powers in Europe, every one which possesses a single ship of the line may dictate to us, and enforce their demands by captures on our commerce.
” He concluded that “naval force then is necessary if we mean to be commercial.” During James Madison’s presidency, we fought the War of 1812 over British interference with our trade with Europe and its impressment of our sailors. Our slogan: “Free trade and sailors’ rights.
” Needless to say, Adams, Jefferson and Madison aren’t strange interlopers in the American experience; they are some of our most honored statesmen, and were fully vested in freedom of navigation. In the aftermath of the two world wars — also involving questions of freedom of navigation — the United States had the naval power to enforce peace on the seas, and it’s been a boon to America and to the rest of the world. As Gregg Easterbrook points out in his compelling book “The Blue Age,” there hasn’t been a major fight on the sea since the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944.
Trade has increased accordingly, and increased wealth here and elsewhere. There is nothing inevitable about this situation. In fact, considering the sweep of world history, conflict and predation are the norm.
Theodore Roosevelt, who was a great navalist, noted that “there has been almost incessant warfare on the oceans.” If we step back, the vacuum isn’t going to be filled by selfless or friendly powers. It either won’t be filled at all, resulting in chaos, or a hostile power like China will enforce an arrangement to its liking.
The Red Sea demonstrates the dynamic in microcosm. President Joe Biden’s abdication allowed insurgents to attack commercial shipping, sending insurance rates soaring, or diverting vessels away from the Suez Canal to the longer, more expensive route around the Cape of Good Hope. One estimate is the attacks added 0.
7% to inflation in global core goods the first six months of last year. Europeans navies aren’t going to deal with this problem (they barely exist), so it is our obligation. Thomas Jefferson wasn’t available to be added to the Signal chain about the anti-Houthi operation.
There is no doubt, though, that he would have approved. Twitter: @RichLowry.
