The Power to Close the Sea
Rome, Carthage, and the Strait at the Origin of Maritime Hegemony
12 pages · PDF · 16 June 2026 · Licensed single-user copy, watermarked to the buyer
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About this report
Maritime power is never decided on the open sea. The horizon cannot be held, blockaded, or taxed; what can be held are the places where the sea narrows to a line — the straits and passages through which the traffic of whole basins must funnel.
It is there, not on open water, that the fate of every thalassocracy is settled, because it is there that a single power on the shore can do the one thing the open sea forbids: it can close. The history of sea empires is, in this sense, a history of chokepoints — of who holds the doors, and of what follows when a door changes hands.
Key questions this report answers
- Why, in the report's thesis, is maritime power decided at the straits and chokepoints where the sea narrows rather than on the open sea?
- What does the history of chokepoint control reveal about the strategic consequences when "a door changes hands"?
- How does the "power to close from below" reframe subsea and seabed control in contemporary maritime strategy?
- What is the "negative criterion" for maritime peace, and how does it apply to today's contested passages?
Inside this report
- I. The Strait at the Origin
- II. A Sea of Many Closures
- III. Carthage, or the Right to Authorize
- IV. Crossing the Strait
- V. From Many Hands to One
- VI. The Doors of the Sea
- VII. The Power to Close from Below
- VIII. The Maritime Peace
- IX. The Negative Criterion
- X. When the Sea Closed Again
Who it's for
Strategy, corporate-development and investment teams that need an ecosystem-level view — budgets, industrial capacity and technology landscapes — before committing capital or capacity.
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DFM reports are built from primary and official sources — TED procurement notices, CORDIS and the EU Funding & Tenders Portal, EIB operations, the NATO Innovation Fund portfolio, SIPRI data, official budget documents and company disclosures — read together with the underlying legal texts. Sources are cited in the document; it reflects them as of its publication date (16 June 2026). You receive a 12-page PDF, watermarked to you on every page, delivered on the confirmation page and by e-mail immediately after checkout (personal link valid 72 hours, up to 5 downloads). Guest checkout, single-user licence — Terms of Sale.
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