Hervé Auffret argues that ships and weapons cannot substitute for the long-term institutions, information systems, and professional ties that shape who sets the rules at sea. China has invested in those instruments of maritime governance; the United States and partners have not matched that effort.
Naval presence and kinetic capabilities are necessary but insufficient: governance builds the institutions and relationships that determine maritime authority in peacetime.
China advances influence by supplying systems, training police and coastguards, and participating persistently in regional institutions—effects a carrier strike group cannot produce.
Four governance effects matter strategically: institutional access, security cooperation below alliance level, dependence on information infrastructure, and rule-making influence.
# Summary Naval power deters, compels, and projects force. Maritime governance organizes authority at sea by building rules, institutions, professional networks, and information systems. Hervé Auffret argues that counting ships, missiles, and bases misses half of maritime competition: the slow, persistent work of governance that defines who gets to write the rules and who gets called in a crisis.
# The functional split: coercion versus governance Navies perform coercive functions—deterrence, compellence, escort. Governance produces different kinds of effects: training prosecutors and coastguards, creating chains of custody for evidence, running information systems for navigation and fisheries, and shaping the rules used daily by officials. When a state invests in governance, presence becomes persistent: recurring courses, repeated port visits, and equipment support turn episodic contact into working relationships.
# China as a proof of concept
# A case study: the Strait of Hormuz, spring 2026 A U.S.-led naval effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz after Iranian restrictions showed a limit of naval power. Cheap drones and mines created commercial risk and insurance costs that naval presence alone could not eliminate. The episode illustrates that controlling the waterline is not the same as restoring safe, routinized commercial transit when actors use low-cost measures to raise operating costs.
# Four recurring governance effects 1) Institutional access: repeated, small programs shape how partners perceive threats and whom they call during crises. 2) Security cooperation below alliance level: training and equipment can bind partners outside formal alliances and create dependencies. 3) Dependence on information infrastructure: systems such as satellite navigation and shared maritime domain awareness become leverage points. 4) Influence over the rules: attending and shaping the technical debates in fisheries, port security, and regional bodies sets norms and procedures.
# Practical implications for policy
# Bottom line Ships buy presence and coercive options. They do not, by themselves, buy the institutions, routines, and informal ties that determine how maritime order functions on an ordinary day. Strategic planning should include governance tools as deliberate instruments of maritime competition.
Ukraine can raid Moscow. America cannot finish the Gulf or spare the bombs for Yemen. The floor holds; the arsenal does not. Continue reading on The Dock on the Bay »
Naval power has long been built around scarce, expensive warships that concentrate sensing, weapons, communications, and crews in a few sophisticated platforms. Autonomy and global networking now make another architecture possible: a persistent naval mesh that distributes those functions among large numbers of speciali
New Delhi need not match Beijing militarily to impose disproportionate strategic costs.
Reviving 1800s Prize Law to seize Iranian vessels in 2026 marks a shift from global maritime police to a declining sea power
By James J. Wirtz No one disagrees that the Navy has not had much luck constructing warships this century. It also continues to face significant challenges when building the next small surface combatant, the Future Frigate (FFX). It is becoming increasingly difficult to pack meaningful warfighting capability into a shi
VICTORIA, Seychelles, September 24 (IPS) - After decades in which the high seas were too often treated as a distant frontier—vast, ownerless and beyond meaningful protection—the High Seas Treaty entered into force on 17 January 2026. Read the full story, “The BBNJ Agreement: From Paper to Protection – The Real Test for
Loading more related stories...
Open the app view to save this story, compare related coverage, and continue from the same source.