We are still describing geopolitics as if it is about territory. Increasingly, it is about something else.

Over the past few years, a pattern has been quietly taking shape – visible in fragments, but rarely understood as a whole.

What we are witnessing is not merely a series of disconnected crises or opportunistic moves, but a structural transformation in how power is exercised on the global stage: a shift from territorial geopolitics, where control over land, borders, and sea lanes defined dominance, to network geopolitics, where the real leverage lies in the ability to sustain, redirect, or deny critical flows of energy, data, minerals, components, capital, and goods.

What we may be observing is not just a shift in geopolitical behavior, but something deeper – a change in the underlying structure through which order is formed and maintained.When pressures accumulate within complex systems, they do not simply produce events. They reshape the conditions under which stability itself is possible.

This is not a sudden rupture.

It is the culmination of accumulated pressures that have been building for over a decade – now manifesting in ways that traditional frameworks like Mackinder’s Heartland or Spykman’s Rimland (the map visible in my LinkedIn profile) can no longer fully capture.

Chokepoints under pressure

The most immediate and visible expressions of this shift appear in the world’s critical chokepoints – narrow passages where global networks converge and become vulnerable to disruption.

Shipping disruptions in the Red Sea, driven by Houthi attacks and regional conflicts, have not only forced rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope but have served as a large-scale stress test of Europe–Asia trade dependency, increasing transit times by up to 14 days and freight rates dramatically during 2024–2025.

Pressure points around the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb are equally significant. Hormuz carries approximately 21 million barrels of oil per day – roughly one-fifth of global seaborne petroleum trade – while Bab el-Mandeb acts as a valve in the global circulation system for both energy and container shipping.

These are not peripheral regional issues.

They expose the structural fragility of the networks that underpin the global economy.

Yet the Red Sea is far from alone.

The Panama Canal, which handles around 5 percent of global maritime traffic and is vital for Asia–U.S. East Coast routes, has faced its own compounded crises in 2025–2026. Severe water shortages due to prolonged drought reduced daily transits significantly, causing congestion and forcing shippers to absorb premiums or reroute via longer paths.

Layered on top of this are escalating geopolitical tensions: a high-stakes tug-of-war between the United States and China over control of the two major ports at either end of the canal – Balboa and Cristóbal.

In early 2026, Panama’s Supreme Court ruled the long-standing concession held by Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison unconstitutional, leading to state seizure of the ports amid U.S. pressure to curb Chinese influence and Chinese retaliation through halted investments and legal threats.

Even seemingly neutral infrastructure can rapidly become a geopolitical flashpoint.

Ownership. Access. Control.

These determine who can move – and who cannot.

Compounding this vulnerability is the often-overlooked domain of digital infrastructure.

Over 95–99 percent of all international internet traffic, financial transactions, and data flows travel through a relatively small number of subsea fiber-optic cables.

In the Red Sea, multiple incidents in 2024 and September 2025 severed key cables, disrupting an estimated 25 percent of telecommunications traffic between Asia, Europe, and the Middle East and causing measurable latency spikes.

Similar patterns have emerged in the Baltic Sea, where between late 2024 and early 2025 at least ten cables and pipelines were damaged in suspicious incidents – including the Estlink 2 power cable and multiple data lines cut by vessels linked to shadow fleet activity.

In the Taiwan Strait, repeated cuts since 2023 – including incidents in early 2025 – have led to formal charges for deliberate sabotage.

These are not random accidents.

They represent gray-zone coercion in network geopolitics — where disrupting data flows can paralyze economies without firing a single shot.

Alternative networks being built

While existing chokepoints are being pressured, new pathways are being deliberately constructed to create redundancy and optionality.

The steady build-out of the Trans-Caspian “Middle Corridor” is a prime example.

Cargo volumes along this route have grown significantly, with container transportation expanding rapidly and major investments announced across rail infrastructure, ports, and logistics systems – backed by cooperation between European institutions, the South Caucasus, and Central Asian states.

This corridor links Europe through the Black Sea, Caucasus, and Central Asia – bypassing traditional Russian-dominated routes and offering a faster, more resilient east–west connection.

The Arctic dimension fits seamlessly into this pattern.

Melting ice has turned the Northern Sea Route from a speculative idea into a gradually operational artery, with renewed strategic attention to Greenland for its minerals, future shipping lanes, and positioning.

I remember visiting Salekhard on the Yamal Peninsula back in 2016 – at the time a remote and windswept town on the Arctic Circle, where the vastness of the tundra and the Ob River made the future Northern Sea Route feel almost abstract.

Yet even then, the foundations were visible.

Preparations around the Sabetta port.

Ice-class tankers.

A clear awareness that this region was shifting – from the edge of the world to a future node in global logistics.

What seemed marginal then is structural now.

At the same time, I have followed similar developments through multiple visits to Minsk over the years.

Long before Chinese logistics presence in Belarus became widely discussed, one could already observe the physical emergence of new rail hubs, warehouses, and industrial parks tied to the Belt and Road Initiative.

The China-Belarus Great Stone Industrial Park was not just another special economic zone.

It was an early bet on something larger: reconfiguring Eurasian connectivity – building alternative nodes, new dependencies, and new forms of resilience.

The energy layer

A harder edge to this shift emerges in the domain of energy flows.

Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves, and developments in 2025–2026 provide a clear illustration of how flows are being reshaped.

Following U.S. actions – including pressure on sanctioned tankers – Venezuelan oil shipments to China have dropped sharply, with cargoes diverted or redirected toward Western markets.

Iran, with its vast reserves and control over Hormuz geography, sits in a parallel strategic position.

These are not isolated developments.

They are part of a broader reconfiguration of energy networks.

Additional layers are emerging.

Gas reserves offshore Gaza are entering the strategic equation within the Eastern Mediterranean system.

Algeria is strengthening its role as a key supplier to Europe, where deeper Western alignment would have immediate systemic implications.

And beyond this, a potential next step becomes visible:

If flows can be reshaped at scale, then American attempts (which I personally believe are fully realistic and ongoing rather that conspiracies) redirecting Russian energy westward – away from China – becomes strategically logical.

Connection to U.S.–China competition

Seen in this broader context, the energy layer connects directly to the intensifying U.S.–China competition.

China has relied heavily on Iranian and Venezuelan oil – in some periods accounting for a significant share of its imports.

Disrupting or reconfiguring those flows is not just about energy.

It is about constraining industrial capacity, strategic depth, and long-term resilience.

The same logic applies across other domains.

China’s tightening grip on rare earths and critical minerals. Export controls on processing technologies. Leverage over refining capacity.

Control over processing – not just extraction – has become decisive.

Nowhere is this more evident than in semiconductors.

Taiwan’s TSMC dominates advanced chip production. The Netherlands’ ASML holds a near-monopoly on EUV lithography.

Export controls, sanctions, and restrictions are no longer secondary tools.

They are primary instruments of power.

The structural shift

What ties all of this together is a simple but underappreciated shift:

We are moving from a world where power is anchored in territory to a world where power is exercised through networks.

And networks behave differently.

They are harder to defend – but easier to disrupt. They create interdependence – but also new forms of coercion. They blur the line between peace and conflict.

This is why so much of today’s competition happens below the threshold of war:

Export controls. Sanctions. Port access. Insurance. Standards. Data flows.

For companies, the question is no longer just where you operate.

It is whether your systems can withstand fragmentation and disruption.

For states, deterrence is no longer only military.

It is logistical. Industrial. Systemic.

The long lines

What makes this moment particularly striking is not that it is sudden – but that it has been visible for a long time.The signals have been there. The data has been there. The pattern has been there. But as so often, we struggle to relate to long, complex processes while they are still unfolding. We default to events, headlines, and turning points – because they are easier to grasp.

Structural change is different. It is gradual. Distributed. Ambiguous – until it is not. And so we describe the world as unpredictable. It isn’t.

For those of us who have followed this – writing about it, trying to connect the dots – there is, of course, a certain frustration.

Not because the information has been missing, but because the signals have been treated as isolated developments rather than parts of a larger structure.

At the same time, this is precisely where the opportunity lies.

Because if these shifts can be observed, they can be understood. And if they can be understood, they can be acted upon.

Whether you lead a company or a country, the challenge is the same: To move beyond reacting to events – and instead position yourself in relation to the structures that produce them.

The world is not becoming more chaotic.

It is becoming more structured – just not along the lines we are used to seeing.

At a deeper level, this points to something more fundamental: that stability is never given, but continuously produced – and that what we perceive as order is often just a temporary balance across underlying tensions. When those tensions intensify, the system does not collapse randomly. It reorganizes.

And those who are willing to engage with that structure – to read the long lines rather than the headlines – will have a fundamentally different ability to anticipate, adapt, and act.

Andreas von der Heide