Keeping sea lanes open through naval presence

Will keeping future sea lanes open fall to individual navies?

It always has, and renewed rivalry makes visible naval presence and differing national rules more important.

Naval presence is a form of active conflict management: a deployed navy signals that its state has interests in an area and makes disruption more costly. The modern international order kept sea lanes open partly because potential challengers lacked the strength or incentive to close them, allowing fleets to shrink. Renewed rivalry means individual navies must again demonstrate commitment before a crisis rather than assume access will continue automatically. The PLAN remains heavily committed to the South China Sea and East China Sea, limiting how much force China would devote to global maritime policing. Even a navy with sufficient ships may protect trade under different rules, just as British and American approaches to freedom of the seas were not identical.