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This satellite image taken on Thursday by the French National Centre for Space Studies shows the stranded container ship Ever Given after it ran aground in the Suez Canal, Egypt. (Yonhap News)

The Suez Canal has been in the news recently, after the Ever Given giant container ship ran aground on March 23, blocking shipping on the canal.

The canal is critical for understanding geopolitics. The continents of Africa and Eurasia are joined by the 125 kilometer-wide strip of land called the Isthmus of Suez; the Suez Canal is the 193 kilometer-long man-made waterway that runs across the isthmus. Since its completion in 1869, the canal has been a major factor in the rise and fall of great powers, both in the East and West.

The sea route from the Mediterranean Sea through the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean was interrupted by the Isthmus of Suez, causing trade between Europe and Asia to pass through brokers in the Middle East. Traders on the overland route through the steppes of Eurasia and the overseas route through the Indian Ocean and then the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea had to make stops at coastal cities in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and the Persian Gulf.

The patterns of trade between Europe and Asia served as the basis for enriching the empires that controlled the Middle East. That began with the Muslim Umayyad Caliphate, the first Muslim empire, which was established in the seventh century, and reached its peak with the Ottoman Empire, in the 15th century, which dominated the Eastern Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf. As the capital of the Ottoman Empire, Istanbul was the hub of world trade.

At the end of the 15th century, Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope, at the southern tip of Africa, charting a direct sea route to India. That overlapped with the discovery of the New World, making the Atlantic coast of Western Europe the center of global trade. For Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, and Britain (which achieved naval supremacy in the mid-18th century), the most vital sea route was the one that circling the Cape of Good Hope to India.

As France challenged Britain’s hegemony, it conceived of a canal running across the Isthmus of Suez in the early 19th century, when Napoleon launched his expedition to Egypt. In 1865, the French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps set up the Suez Canal Company after receiving a concession for building the canal from Said Pasha, the Ottoman Empire’s viceroy of Egypt.

The Suez Canal Company ran into numerous problems along the way, including fierce opposition from Britain and fears about the difficulty of construction. But the company acquired the capital it needed with help from James Rothschild, who was living in Paris.

It took ten years to build the Suez Canal. Upon its completion, it reduced the sea route from London to the Arabian Sea by about 8,900 kilometers, or a month at the time (today, 8-10 days).

The opening of the Suez Canal weakened Istanbul’s grip on trade and sped up the decline of the Ottoman Empire. When the viceroy of Egypt, who was in financial trouble, wanted to sell 200,000 shares in the canal for 4 million pounds in 1875, then British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli snapped up the shares, taking out a loan from Lionel de Rothschild, who was in Britain at the time. That’s how Britain and France assumed joint operation of the Suez Canal.

During the first and second world wars, first the Ottoman Empire and later the Germans sought to seize the Suez Canal, which was vigorously defended by the British. Even after World War II, the Suez Canal remained at the center of the Middle East conflict and the fortunes of the great powers and the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union.

In 1956, Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had become president of Egypt in a coup, announced that he would nationalize the Suez Canal. That was how Nasser meant to fund the construction of the Aswan Dam on the Nile, after the West rebuffed his request for help.

Since their concession to operate the canal was supposed to last until 1968, Britain and France conspired with Israel to retake the canal in what was called the Suez Crisis, or the Second Arab-Israel War. Israel launched the first strike in October 1956, seizing the Sinai Peninsula, after which Britain and France deployed troops under the guise of mediation.

The Soviet Union, which backed Egypt, threatened nuclear war, and the US administration under President Dwight Eisenhower was outraged at Britain and France. When Eisenhower threatened to cut off aid, London and Paris backed down, leading to the complete withdrawal of British and French forces from the Middle East. But through his closure of the canal, Nasser became an icon of Arab nationalism.

The canal was reopened in April 1957, only to be closed again during the Six Days War, also known as the Third Arab-Israeli War, in 1967. After Israel reoccupied the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt shut down operations at the canal for eight years.

Egypt wanted the return of the Sinai Peninsula and the recognition of its geopolitical status in the Middle East. It wasn’t until peace negotiations following the Yom Kippur War, which Egypt launched against Israel in 1973, that Egypt agreed to reopen the canal, which finally took place on June 5, 1975.

Reopening the canal had been sorely needed to mitigate the “oil shock” precipitated by the oil embargo oil-producing countries imposed after the Yom Kippur War.

The Suez Canal has also shaken up political alignments in the Middle East conflict. With the US being one of the canal's major customers, Egypt has developed stronger economic ties with the West. In 1979, Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel, which is backed by the US, and subsequently forfeited its position as leader of the Arab world to Saudi Arabia.

The stranding of the Ever Given has underlined the Suez Canal’s continuing importance as a trade conduit in the digital era. History shows that instability or on or closure of sea routes has an immediate impact on global trade and, in the long term, can even change the balance of power.

By Jung E-gil, senior staff writer

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