Turkey’s plan to build a canal bypassing the Bosporus Strait and potentially upsetting the Montreux Convention (see EDM, February 9) along with Russia’s movement of warships from the Caspian to the Sea of Azov via the Volga–Don Canal in order to threaten Ukraine (see EDM, April 13) highlight the ways in which artificial waterways can play a significant geopolitical role—possibly as dramatically as the late-19th century “Railway Wars” did in the Middle East. Those two developments have attracted widespread international attention in and of themselves. But a broader trend, likely to play an increasing role in the geopolitics of the greater Caspian region, has yet to garner notice. That is the emergence of competition among existing and planned canal systems from the Caspian to the Black Sea, on the one hand, and to the Indian Ocean, on the other.
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