A year ago, we argued that maritime insecurity risked becoming as destabilizing as land-based conflict. Today, that warning largely holds, and in some ways has become direr. The oceans have become a primary operating environment for geopolitical competition. The result is an economic landscape in which shipping routes, insurance markets and infrastructure protection are core variables shaping trade flows and investment decisions.
The bottom line for 2026 is that, while growth may be steady enough to sustain current investor optimism, the world economy is operating at a higher security-adjusted cost base. The maritime domain is where those costs are likeliest to jump – suddenly and nonlinearly – turning localized disruption into globally relevant repricing.
Trade Corridors Under Sustained Strain
The prediction that threats to key sea lanes would place global trade under unprecedented pressure proved correct, though the language now needs refinement. The crisis in the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb did not dissipate after early disruptions. It instead became the most sustained corridor shock since the pandemic-era supply chain breakdowns. Rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope, higher insurance premiums and uncertainty over Suez transits reshaped Asia-Europe shipping economics throughout 2024 and 2025.
Vessels mostly kept moving, but risk pricing became structural. Suez traffic collapsed: By early 2024, container tonnage had dropped by an estimated 82 percent, according to the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, and remained depressed through 2025. Only 120 container ships passed through the Suez Canal in November 2025, down from 583 in October 2023, just before Houthi attacks intensified on commercial ships in the area.
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