ABSTRACT
The sea is presented as a space "outside" society, a friction-free surface increasingly made obsolete thanks to air travel and seamless container transport. The manner in which diverse geographies of the ocean-space are being written and upheld in the first place also carries enormous implications for how the challenge of securing the sea lanes is being taken up by policy-makers. Britain's empire differed from that of Rome in that Britain, hegemonic as it may have been, existed within a political system of formally equivalent sovereigns. The spectre of maritime terrorism, especially with regard to the Indian Ocean, has acquired additional visibility and urgency after 9/11. The end of the East-West ideological Cold War geopolitics has radically altered the previous balance of sea power and the corporate globalization of international geopolitical economy is breaking down national borders in the shipping industry.
