Analysis of the Global Maritime Transportation System and Its Resilience
Masters thesis — German Army), Naval Postgraduate School, 2017. Full text: https://archive.org/details/DTIC_AD1046371
Arguments
Analysis of the Global Maritime Transportation System and Its Resilience
Trade shocks are network shocks — the thesis quantifies exactly how much the world economy depends on a handful of chokepoints holding.
The global maritime transportation system carries more than 90% of the foreign trade of the U.S. and many other industrial nations — losing a port or having a canal blockaded causes serious economic consequences, so the operability of the global economy depends on the resilience of this system; the thesis models container ports, maritime chokepoints, and transportation routes as a network and applies network-science metrics to measure that resilience.
Why it matters
Trade shocks are network shocks — the thesis quantifies exactly how much the world economy depends on a handful of chokepoints holding.
Use when: When 90% of trade rides one network, resilience is the economy — measure the chokepoints, not just the cargo.