Recently, I happened to find an interesting article titled “By Land or by Sea: Continental Power, Maritime Power and the Fight for a New World Order” by Sarah C. M. Paine, William S. Sims University Professor of History and Grand Strategy Emerita at the U.S. Naval War College, through Foreign Affairs magazine. I read through the whole article with keen interest. As I expected, it was a long look at current international affairs concerning the fight for a new world order. The competition for power over international arenas originates from geography, and has produced two antithetical global outlooks: “continental power” and “maritime power.”

In the continental world, the currency of power is land. Most countries inhibit a continental world with multiple neighbors, including hegemonic powers such as China and Russia. They funnel resources into their militaries to protect their borders, while also trying to conquer and intimidate their neighbors in wealth-destroying wars. The result is a vicious cycle.

By contrast, maritime states with oceanic borders see money, not territory, as the source of power, and seek to trade safely. They focus on compounding wealth rather than fighting neighbors. They advance domestic prosperity through international commerce and through industry, minimizing the tradeoff between military and civilian needs. Since World War II, the United States’ strategy has reflected its position as a maritime power and its economic dominance.

Today’s competition is just the latest iteration of the continental-maritime conflict. Around half the world’s population lives by the sea. Coastal areas create roughly two-thirds of global wealth. Submarine cables account for 99 percent of international communications traffic. Countries vested in the maritime order are far richer than those that seek to undermine it. China, for instance, became rich only after it joined the maritime order when the Cold War ended. The Iranian and Russian economies are a fraction of what they could be if they had followed international law and built democratic institutions to protect their citizens instead of their dictators.

In the continental world, power is a function of territory. Neighbors are not always neighborly. Since strong ones may invade, continental powers work to destabilize nearby countries. For example North Korea is likely to politically recognize Ukrainian territory as Russian, giving political and legal justification for deploying troops under the pretext of defending Russian territory.

Japan prospered under a maritime trading order. Then, it adopted a continental paradigm and seized a large empire on the Asian mainland. Postwar Japan returned to the maritime paradigm of working through international organizations and under international law. This produced the Japanese economic miracle, leading to it becoming one of the world’s richest countries. Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan all saw economic miracles thanks to the maritime system, as well.

It is lucky for me that Paine’s article taught me about the past, along with emerging and anticipating tenets in global power struggles, to broaden and deepen my understanding of on-going international situations. She reminds me that most of the Korean Peninsula has been and will be the fault line for dividing power between the land and the sea.

Lee Sun-ho (wkexim@naver.com) is a freelance columnist living in Seoul. The views expressed here are his own.