Littoral dominion The geopoliTics of The sea Thanos Kalamidas LittoraL dominion Thanos Kalamidas An Ovi Magazine Books Publication 2026 Ovi Project Publication - All material is copyright of the Ovi magazine & the writer C Ovi books are available in Ovi magazine pages and they are for free. If somebody tries to sell you an Ovi book please contact us immediately. For details, contact: submissions@ovimagazine.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, printed or digital, altered or selectively extracted by any means (electronic, mechanical, print, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author or the publisher of this book. Littoral dominion liTToral dominion The geopoliTics of The sea Thanos Kalamidas Thanos Kalamidas An Ovi Magazine Books Publication 2026 Ovi Project Publication - All material is copyright of the Ovi magazine & the writer C Littoral dominion conTenTs prologue: The salt throne 7 The next frontier of geopolitics lies under the sea 11 The Bollywood of Democracy how narrow waters shape global strategies 18 The melting edge 25 The chinese floating sovereignty 33 Blue carbon The ocean’s new diplomatic currency 40 abyssal ambitions The geopolitics of deep-sea mining 47 how ai is quietly ending the age of sailors 55 frozen frontiers greenland, iceland and the geopolitics of arctic ambition 62 Thanos Kalamidas An Ovi Magazine Books Publication 2026 Ovi Project Publication - All material is copyright of the Ovi magazine & the writer C Littoral dominion Prologue The salt throne The map of the world is a lie or at the very least, a profound optical illusion. We are conditioned from birth to look at the continents, those solid, unmoving anchors of our civilizations and see them as the de- finitive centers of power. We draw lines in the dust, build walls of stone and sign treaties over patches of dirt, convinced that history is a drama played out on solid ground. But the history of the human race has never truly been written in the dust; it has been etched in the salt spray. Five centuries before the common era, as the shad- ow of the Persian Empire stretched across the Ae- gean, the Athenian general Themistocles realized a truth that remains the fundamental gravity of our Thanos Kalamidas modern world: “He who commands the sea, com- mands all.” He understood that the land is a fortress, but the sea is a lever. From the bronze-beaked tri- remes of Athens to the silent, nuclear-powered levia- thans of the twenty-first century, the ocean has never been a “void” or a “gap” between meaningful places. It is the world’s primary highway of capital, the ulti- mate graveyard of empires, and the final, lawless site of human ambition. We live in a state of “sea blindness.” We enjoy the fruits of a globalized world while ignoring the ma- chinery that delivers it. Today, roughly 90% of glob- al trade moves by water. The smartphone in your pocket, the fuel in your car and the grain in your silo likely crossed a dozen time zones in the belly of a megaship. Beneath those hulls, in the dark silence of the abyss, lie the “nerves” of the modern world, thousands of miles of fibber-optic cables that carry the invisible pulses of the internet. If the land is the body of our civilization, the sea is the circulatory system. If the flow stops, the body dies. Yet, we are entering an era of unprecedented mar- itime volatility. The “Long Peace” of the high seas is fracturing. As the climate reshapes our coast- lines, drowning old ports and opening frozen north- Littoral dominion ern passages, the scramble for resources is moving into deeper, darker waters. Technology is rendering once-mighty fleets obsolete, replacing them with au - tonomous swarms and hypersonic threats that turn the surface of the water into a kill zone. The struggle for the Salt Throne is intensifying. From the disputed shallows of the South China Sea to the warming arteries of the Arctic and the pre- carious chokepoints of the Middle East, the world’s powers are relearning an old lesson: sovereignty is only as strong as your ability to project it across the waves. This book is not about the land we stand on. It is about the 71% of the planet we have tried to con- quer, but only ever managed to lease. It explores the hidden architecture of maritime law, the high-stakes chess game of naval strategy, and the terrifying fra- gility of our underwater infrastructure. We will ex- amine why the next great conflict will likely start not with a march across a border, but with a flash in the surf. The anchors are up. The tide is rising. The era of the terrestrial myth is over. The world belongs to those who can not only navigate the trackless blue but survive the storm that is coming for us all. Thanos Kalamidas An Ovi Magazine Books Publication 2026 Ovi Project Publication - All material is copyright of the Ovi magazine & the writer C Littoral dominion The next frontier of geopolitics lies under the sea When we speak of the “Cloud,” most of us picture a boundless ethereal space above our heads, a repos- itory of selfies, spreadsheets and global commerce that floats somewhere in cyberspace. Yet, for all its airy mystique 99% of international data does not drift through the sky. It rides on steel and glass, bun- dled into thousands of fibber-optic cables that snake across the ocean floor. These lines are the veins of the global economy, the literal plumbing of digital civilization. And in a world where every transac- tion, vote and algorithm depends on their unbroken flow, naval power is no longer just about protecting tankers or projecting military might; it is about safe- guarding the very infrastructure of the internet. Imagine a single ship dragging an anchor in the wrong place, or a covert operation severing a few Thanos Kalamidas cables in the Atlantic or the Red Sea. In theory, it could erase a nation’s digital heartbeat: financial markets could collapse, communications networks could black out, and supply chains could grind to a halt. Unlike cyberattacks, which can be mitigated by firewalls or backups, damage to undersea cables is brutally physical, slow to repair, and strategically devastating. Yet the world treats these arteries as af- terthoughts, ignored by policymakers, underfunded by militaries and barely on the radar of international diplomacy. The irony is stark. In an age obsessed with cloud computing, ransom ware, and quantum cryptogra- phy, the real threat is decidedly low-tech. A 19th-cen- tury naval hazard a rusty anchor, a heavy trawl, a determined diver remains among the most effective weapons against the 21st-century digital economy. The digital age is paradoxically dependent on an analogue Achilles’ heel, and the nations that realize this first will wield a strategic advantage for decades to come. Consider the geography of vulnerability. The world’s busiest undersea corridors run through chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz, the Suez Ca- nal, and the English Channel. These cables are laid Littoral dominion along predictable paths, often close to shipping lanes, and in relatively shallow waters where anchors and dredges can reach them. A single well-placed cut can isolate entire regions from the global internet, mak- ing it not just a technical failure but a geopolitical lever. For countries that rely heavily on cross-border trade, cloud-based banking, or digital governance, the consequences could be catastrophic. In response, we are beginning to see the contours of a new military doctrine: what could be called “seabed warfare.” Navies are experimenting with autonomous drones that patrol cable routes, sensors that can detect tampering from miles away, and even underwater repair units capable of deploying at a moment’s notice. These systems operate in a realm invisible to most of the world, a cold, high-pressure environment where human access is limited and mis- takes are costly. Yet, like missile defence or satellite constellations, the goal is simple: make it prohibi- tively difficult for an adversary to touch your digital lifelines. The rise of seabed warfare is not just a technical in- novation; it represents a profound shift in the calcu- lus of global power. Traditional military superiority, aircraft carriers, fighter jets, and nuclear submarines, Thanos Kalamidas still matters. But the new frontier of strategic lever- age may lie in stealthy, underwater drones patrolling cables that carry trillions of dollars of commerce each day. A nation that masters this domain gains more than just security, it gains bargaining power. Threats to sever a cable, or the ability to isolate a ri- val’s network for hours or days, could become a tool of coercion without a single shot fired on the surface. Of course, this is not without risk. Militarizing the undersea internet could create a feedback loop of in- security: countries racing to deploy sensors, patrols, and countermeasures, while others seek asymmetric methods to bypass or sabotage them. The undersea domain is already crowded with civilian traffic, sci - entific missions, and environmental sensitivities. In - troducing autonomous military drones could height- en the chances of accidental damage, legal disputes, or international incidents. Yet history suggests that strategic imperatives often outweigh caution. Just as nations once scrambled to control choke points for oil or shipping, they are now beginning to eye the seabed as a domain worth defending even dominat- ing. The implications extend beyond military strategy. Economies and societies are now tethered to cables Littoral dominion in ways that few appreciate. Financial markets de- pend on low-latency trades across oceans; govern- ments rely on secure communications; multination- al corporations orchestrate logistics through global networks. A cable severed is not just a momentary inconvenience, it is a systemic shock. Unlike cyber- attacks, which can be masked or mitigated, undersea disruptions are brutally visible, physically demand- ing to repair, and strategically destabilizing. Yet the public remains largely unaware, lulled into thinking the cloud is intangible and invulnerable. All of which raises a pressing question, if 21st-cen- tury wealth and power are so dependent on the ocean floor, why are so few policymakers treating it as a top-tier national-security priority? Part of the an- swer is human psychology. The sea is vast, opaque, and distant; it is easier to conceptualize threats in the sky or cyberspace than in murky, high-pressure depths. Anchors and trawls lack the drama of missile launches or cyber breaches. But the potential pay- off of ignoring this vulnerability is equally dramatic. In a digital-first economy, a few hours offline could ripple through markets, paralyze governments, and embarrass leaders in ways that traditional conflicts could not. Thanos Kalamidas The policy challenge, then, is twofold. First, na- tions must recognize that protecting undersea cables is not a technical detail; it is a strategic imperative, deserving investment, training, and doctrine. Sec- ond, the international community must grapple with norms and agreements to prevent escalation. Unlike outer space, the seabed is crowded and regulated by a patchwork of treaties; militarization without coor- dination risks accidents and diplomatic crises. Sub- sea security is, therefore, not just about hardware; it is a test of strategic foresight, diplomacy, and imag- ination. In the end, the lesson is clear: the future of glob- al security is as much about what lies beneath the waves as what flies above them. Naval power, once defined by gun turrets and fleet formations, is now intertwined with fibber optics, autonomous drones, and the delicate art of keeping information flowing. The world is tethered to its undersea infrastructure in ways that are profoundly fragile, yet endlessly critical. Nations that understand this will shape the contours of digital geopolitics for decades to come. Those that do not may discover, in a single drag of an anchor, how quickly their high-tech civilization can be humbled by the low-tech realities of the deep. Littoral dominion The cloud, it turns out, is only as strong as the steel and glass beneath the waves. Thanos Kalamidas How narrow waters shape global strategies From the Malacca Strait to the Suez Canal, the ar- teries of global trade are far narrower and far more perilous than many policymakers care to admit. A handful of miles of navigable water channels the commerce of continents. Tankers brimming with crude oil, container ships laden with electronics and the steady hum of bulk cargo all converge along these narrow corridors, turning geography itself into a potent geopolitical weapon. The paradox is simple; the world’s prosperity depends on places that are by design highly vulnerable. The term “Malacca Dilemma” has crept into stra- tegic thinking over the past two decades. Singapore’s narrow passage between Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula is one of the busiest straits on the planet. Nearly a quarter of global trade passes through it, in- Littoral dominion cluding more than half of China’s imported energy. For Beijing, this narrow waterway is both a lifeline and a potential nightmare. In a confrontation with a superior maritime power, a few mines, fast attack craft or a well-timed blockade could grind the flow of energy and goods to a halt. The vulnerability is obvious and it is forcing superpowers to rethink the very geography of global supply chains. China’s response is emblematic of how nations confront such chokepoints. The Belt and Road Initia- tive, which stretches across continents and oceans is often discussed in terms of investment and influence. But strategically it is also an insurance policy against geographic bottlenecks. Pipelines bypassing vulner- able straits, rail corridors linking inland production centers to ports outside potential conflict zones and port investments across Africa and the Middle East all reduce the risks of being held hostage by a few miles of water. In other words the Malacca Dilemma is not just a maritime problem; it is a driver of global infrastructure strategy. Egypt, Iran and Indonesia are among the so-called “middle powers” that understand the latent leverage embedded in their geography. Egypt’s control of the Suez Canal grants it outsized influence over global Thanos Kalamidas shipping. Iran, perched astride the Strait of Hormuz, wields the ability to disrupt oil flows with relatively modest naval assets. Indonesia, home to the Malac- ca Strait and several other critical passages, sits at a crossroads of global trade routes that makes even minor policy shifts or infrastructure investments reverberate worldwide. Geography in these cases translates directly into strategic power: the ability to threaten, regulate or reshape the flow of goods at a planetary scale. For superpowers accustomed to projecting strength across oceans this is a thorny challenge. Aircraft car- riers and amphibious strike groups, the mainstay of U.S. and allied naval dominance are excellent for as- serting control over wide swaths of open ocean but their effectiveness diminishes sharply in narrow wa - ters. Mines, coastal missile batteries and fast-attack craft can multiply the defensive advantage of a small coastal state, making even a handful of kilometres a formidable obstacle. The very tools that confer glob- al reach are constrained by local geography, under- scoring a fundamental tension between power and access. This tension is only set to intensify in the coming decades with the rise of “smart chokepoints.” Im-