"Even assuming that the US Navy's presence in the Near Seas is only to defend the Law of the Sea Convention (and the US no longer even really maintains that stance), these "freedom of navigation operations put US warships in a position to subsequently impede China's military options in the Taiwan Strait, and across the South and East China Seas. And so, from the late 1990s onward, China focused its energy and effort on building out its capacity to push back, to defend its interests in the Near Seas, and frustrate or limit USN freedom within those waters."
Bruce D. Jones works at the Brookings Institution. He has also served as advisor to the World Bank. Aside from To Rule the Waves he's written one other book on his own, 2014's Still Ours to Lead: America, Rising Powers and the Tension between Rivalry and Restraint.
To Rule the Waves, which isn't even included in the author's Wikipedia entry, outlines how various world powers attempt to control the seas, both along their own coastlines and in an international context. It places issues such as international shipping, territorial disputes and oceanography in the context of climate change, and does so in a well-researched manner that doesn't fall too heavily on one side or the other.
After a short introductory section the author divides his study into three parts, these being a) the ports, routes and companies most relevant to international shipping, b) piracy and international disputes involving the demarcation of national vs. international waters, and c) the study of oceanography in the context of climate change, and how our understanding(s) of climate change plays into all of the topics covered up to that point.
It is, all in all, a very balanced account of both how the sea is relevant to our daily lives and how this same sea continues to shape our future. Everything from Maersk to the Aegis radar system is discussed, and the author seems especially well-informed with regard to the US Navy and its role in world trade.
I have a few complaints, however, which hopefully the author has already anticipated and which he will address in some future, still more comprehensive book.
My first complaint is the lack of detail with regard to China's government, its military, and most specifically its navy. The workings of the US Navy take up a lot of space in this book, and a lack of detail with regard to China's side of the equation is particularly glaring. I realize that China's government and military aren't as transparent as their US equivalents, but this book often returns to a contest between the US and China for control of the seas, and more information on China's side of this contest would have been helpful.
My second complaint is the page-long description of Taiwan's history. This description omits a few important things, and leads one to believe that China has more claims on the island than it actually does. Dates of immigration, Taiwan's loss of UN membership, and the details of various treaties are all relevant to larger discussions of tensions in the South China Sea.
My third and last complaint is the exclusion of the fishing industry from this book. Fisheries are discussed in passing, but the fishing fleets of the various world powers, especially those operating in the South China Sea, should have been explored to some extent. "The flag follows trade?" What about "trade follows fish?" Disputes over fisheries inform several disagreements between nations, and including some of these disputes would have rounded out some of the sections nicely.
Yet aside from these complaints I still think that To Rule the Waves is a good book, and moreover a book well worth reading. If, like me, you live in East Asia, you'll find a renewed understanding of many essential topics in its pages, alongside some trivia you may not have come across before.
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