The collapse of the international ocean system, the rise in maritime conflicts with climate change, and disinformation in the digital age

Over the past five centuries, the land has been the focus of competition and conflict between human societies, until every inch of it, with the exception of Antarctica, has become subject to the sovereignty of a state, while the oceans and seas have remained outside this control.

When some countries tried to impose control and regulate the seas, the attempts failed because they were too vast to control for long periods. During the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, in the second half of the twentieth century, the great powers avoided entering into a frantic race to seize the oceans.

Most governments agreed to deal with it through a set of treaties and bodies that sought to guarantee freedom of navigation in international waters, while allocating areas of the seas to the countries bordering them by classifying them as territorial waters or an exclusive economic zone for each country.

But Michel Albertus, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, said in an analysis published by Foreign Affairs magazine that this international system of seas and oceans is now collapsing, as the Houthis in Yemen are disrupting navigation in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, while a conflict is taking place in the Strait of Hormuz region.

In July, US President Donald Trump proposed the idea of ​​the United States collecting traffic fees in Hormuz, before he later backed down from the plan.

At the same time, other governments compete for control of international waters and marine resources; Russia is seeking to extend its control over vast areas of Arctic waters and seabeds, China is creating artificial islands in the South China Sea, the United States is expanding its influence on the seabeds outside its exclusive economic zone, and many countries are seeking to begin extracting vital rare minerals from the oceans. * Global trend

This global trend towards controlling sea lanes or vast areas of seas and oceans coincides with the deterioration of the strength of international institutions and treaties that have maintained freedom of navigation in the oceans for decades. Now global trade faces an existential threat if governments rush to impose their control over the Earth's seas, as they did with the land, bringing the world into a new era of maritime conflicts.

Albertus, author of the book “The Return of the Conquest,” which is still in print, says that a world in which the oceans are divided will inevitably be poorer and more dangerous.

After Iran announced its intention to impose transit fees in the Strait of Hormuz, which it has controlled and practically closed since the American-Israeli attack on it at the end of last February, the Indonesian Finance Minister hinted at the possibility of his country imposing transit fees in the Strait of Malacca, before retracting his statement later. The Strait of Malacca is a vital sea lane in Southeast Asia through which about 29 percent of the world's seaborne oil supplies pass.

China has also been ignoring a binding ruling issued in 2016 under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, rejecting its extensive claims in the South China Sea. Beijing is violating this decision by building artificial islands on disputed coral reefs, encroaching on the Philippines' exclusive economic zone, and besieging Taiwan.

As for Russia, there are suspicions of using ships with hidden identities to cut marine cables, as part of a broader campaign to destabilize European countries in response to their support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. * Climate change

Climate change is set to spark new conflicts across the oceans; As the ice continues to melt in the Arctic, maritime traffic is expected to increase on the new sea route that linked Europe and Asia along the Russian coast overlooking the Arctic. It is difficult to imagine Moscow allowing free passage through this route, given that it currently forces foreign ships that pass through this route to submit to a complex and stifling system of permits and licenses. It also treats waterways, such as the Vilkitsky Strait off the Siberian coast, as internal waterways under Russian jurisdiction, rather than international straits.

Conflicts over the oceans are not limited to controlling navigation traffic; With China dominating the current global supply of rare earth minerals and exploiting them as a powerful leverage, other countries are exploring the possibilities of extracting minerals from the bottom of the oceans. Ocean lands in areas such as the Clarion-Clipperton region in the North Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Mexico, the central Indian Ocean Basin, and the Penrhyn Basin in the South Pacific Ocean contain huge quantities of stones that contain extremely important minerals.

The International Seabed Authority, part of the United Nations Convention, has issued dozens of exploration contracts that allow governments to survey and map the ocean floor, collect environmental data, and test extraction techniques. However, the authority currently prohibits commercial mining because its members do not agree on environmental standards or compliance rules. * Riches at the bottom

Signatory countries to international treaties restricting extractive activities in the oceans and seas, including China, India, and Russia, are likely to object if the United States moves forward with open-ocean mining projects. Although Beijing and Moscow ignore other laws of the sea, they will cite US mining to justify their own laws.

As with other rules-based systems, the international ocean governance system will not collapse all at once, because great powers still benefit from some rules; Such as regulating fisheries, even if there are gains from chaos in other areas; Rather, the system is likely to gradually collapse.

Finally, Albertus warns of a slowdown in trade, in a world where countries are fighting over control of the oceans. Ships will be forced to take winding routes across the seas, pay increasing fees in straits, commodity prices will rise, and supply chains will become more unstable and more vulnerable to disruption. An ocean conquest may eventually develop as a territorial conquest, with the strongest nations - or those arriving first - seizing ownership of resources. The number of geopolitical tension points will multiply as governments race to seize the largest share of the oceans and protect their alleged sovereignty using force.

War no longer reaches people only through the sound of cannons or images of destroyed cities; In the age of the smartphone, the real war may begin before the missiles arrive and the bullets fire, and it may continue after it stops, inside screens, minds, and social media. Contradictory narratives, fabricated photos, out-of-context videos, automated accounts, and fake news all compete to shape the image of the conflict in people's minds.

Here a question arises that is more serious than just the number of wars taking place in the world: What happens when war becomes ordinary news? Could the constant repetition of violence weaken our ability to feel trauma, rejection and empathy? *An old phenomenon

The propaganda war is not a new phenomenon; Since ancient Rome, competitors have realized that winning a battle is inseparable from winning public opinion. In the first century BC, Octavian and Mark Antony fought a propaganda struggle parallel to their political and military struggle, and both sides used coins, poems, pamphlets, and speeches to mobilize support.

Octavian dealt a fatal blow to his opponent when he read before the Senate what was said to be Antony's will, which, according to the story, showed his loyalty to Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, more than his loyalty to Rome. Historians still disagree about whether the document is real or fabricated. But regardless of its truth, the novel played a role in mobilizing public opinion against Antony, and the conflict ended with Octavian becoming the sole ruler of Rome, playing a decisive role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire, and earning the title of “Venerable” by decision of the Senate, and his name became Augustus Caesar. *New tools

The principle itself has not changed much, but its tools have changed radically.

Today, anyone has the ability to produce an image, clip, or novel and reach millions of people within hours. Here we must distinguish between misleading information; That is, misinformation that is spread without necessarily intentional intent, and intentional misinformation, which is based on spreading false information with the aim of influencing or misleading the public.

In wars, the boundaries between media and propaganda become more blurred; Each party seeks to present itself as the victim, show its opponent as the aggressor, and choose images, numbers, and stories that serve its narrative. As the same story is repeated, inaccurate information can turn into “fact” in the minds of some people. Not necessarily because it is convincing, but because it has become familiar, and because the recipient is reluctant to investigate to find out the truth.

Psychological research indicates that a person does not deal with every new information as an investigator; He often focuses first on understanding the information and determining what he should do based on it. If the false information is reasonable and consistent with what he already believes, he may classify it as truth and embrace it.

Believability increases when the information comes from a source that the person belongs to or trusts, or when it is fraught with fear and anger. Repeating a claim also increases the likelihood of it being believed, even when it conflicts with prior knowledge. * Platforms and algorithms

Here social media platforms play a very important role. Algorithms are primarily designed to attract attention and interaction, and content that provokes anger, fear, or shock often has a greater ability to spread than calm, thoughtful material. Thus, it may not be the most accurate narrative that triumphs, but rather the narrative most capable of arousing emotion.

Technological development adds a new layer to the problem; Generative artificial intelligence has made it easier to produce fake photos and videos, and made it more difficult to distinguish between the real and the fake. If the public has become accustomed to a constant stream of conflicting information, the emergence of “deep fakes” makes the question more complex: What can be believed when the image itself becomes capable of being forged, or even created out of nothing?

Here the danger may not be that people believe everything, but rather that they reach a stage where they do not believe anything. Constant exposure to contradictory and fabricated information can weaken trust in the media and institutions, increase polarization, and make individuals more skeptical of the shared facts that any society needs to make its decisions. In times of war, this can have an additional price: victims become numbers, tragedies become content, and the audience deals with news of killing and destruction as it deals with any other news that passes on the screen and then disappears before being forgotten. * Mass fatigue

But habituation does not necessarily mean the absence of empathy. What is happening may be closer to collective news fatigue; When crises, wars, and disasters accumulate, a person may be unable to maintain the same level of emotion toward each event. The war that was able to stop the world for a moment may, after months or years, become another news among the economic, sports and weather news...

(The Lebanese - for example - experienced this in the period 2019-2020, starting with the outbreak of massive fires of unknown causes, through the financial collapse and the filling of streets and squares with people in revolt, as well as “Covid”, and ending with the disaster of the Beirut Port explosion).

Here lies the paradox: the more we are able to see wars moment by moment, the less we are able to continue to feel their impact.

It must be said that confrontation begins not only with verifying fake news, but also with teaching people how to ask: Who spread this information? What is its source? Are there independent sources that confirm this? Is the image really recent or was it taken out of another context and reused?

The battle over truth is not separate from the battle over war. In a world where a single fabricated photo can reach millions of people, the ability to doubt and verify becomes a kind of digital civil defense.

Perhaps the world is not completely accustomed to violence. But he was more or less accustomed to witnessing violence.

The difference between the two is important. Because the real danger does not begin when we stop seeing the war, but rather when we stop asking questions about it... when the corpses become images, the destruction is a background, the victims are just numbers, and the war is ordinary news that passes before our eyes before we turn to our daily concerns. * They said it was misleading

-Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States, (1743-1826): “Nothing published in a newspaper can be believed any longer; The truth itself becomes questionable simply because it is placed in that polluted medium.”

- Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister (1874 - 1965): “In wartime, the truth is so precious that it must always be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies.”

- Barack Obama, US President between 2009 and 2017: “There is a tremendous amount of active disinformation, and it is presented in a very good way... If everything looks the same and we no longer distinguish between things, we will not know what to protect.”

- Irish writer Jonathan Swift (1667 - 1745): “Falsehood flies, while truth comes dragging its tails.”

- Irish writer George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950): “Beware of false knowledge; It is more dangerous than ignorance.”

- American journalist Carl Bernstein (82 years old): “The lowest forms of popular culture – lack of information, misinformation, deliberate false information, and contempt for the truth or the reality of most people’s lives – have invaded real journalism.”