Cooperation, Coercion, and Navalism

A Phoenician bireme on a relief from the South-West Palace at Nineveh, now in the British Museum. Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC-SA-3.0 Recently I have been reading two online debates about the role of naval force in the 21st century. Over on his blog, Australian economist John Quiggin has been chatting about the Australian navy with commentators like MarkL since 2008. That debate brought up a helpful reading list on strategic theory. Over on his blog, Bret Devereaux has been talking naval power and global trade with people such as Yard. He also got a lively response. I have decided to expand one of my comments to his blog with yet more amateur thoughts. Why aren’t there pirates on Lake Ontario? For 300 years after Europeans sailed into the St Lawrence, the limit of navigation was the Lachine Rapids at Montreal. Lake Ontario was further cut off from the upper lakes by Niagra Falls. As settlers pushed inland, they launched a few sloops, brigs, and schooners on the lakes. Then the War…