The Commercial Importance of the Suez Canal in the Context of the Crisis of Economic Globalization and Modern Geopolitical Risks

Abstract

Aim. To substantiate the regularity of the violation of commercial navigation along the Suez Canal in the context of the crisis of economic globalization and the reformatting of the international order.Tasks. To find out the main prerequisites for the decline of the global transport and logistics infrastructure. To specify the reasons for the violation of navigation in the Red Sea. To show the impact of the decline in cargo transportation through the Suez Canal on the global economy.Methods. In order to achieve the stated purpose of the study, the following methods were used: historicism, which allowed to establish the sequence of crisis manifestations during the operation of the Suez Canal; extraction of relevant information from media materials and its subsequent analysis, which showed the geo-economic importance of the Red Sea area for world navigation, the scale of disorganization of transport communication through the Suez Canal; structural and functional analysis, which contributed to the establishment of the importance of transport logistics in ensuring the smooth functioning of the global economy; a rational choice that brought the authors closer to understanding the motives of the behavior of economic and political actors in the conditions of disorganization of cargo transportation through the Red Sea.Results. The analysis of the main prerequisites for reformatting global transport logistics has been carried out. It is shown that the decline of shipping in the Red Sea is conditioned by the crisis of economic globalization and increased geopolitical risks. The reasons for the violation of navigation in the Red Sea have been established. The impact of the disruption of cargo transportation through the Suez Canal on the global economy has been revealed.Conclusions. The destabilization of global transport routes through the Red Sea seems logical. It is obviously conditioned by the slippage of the neoliberal economic mechanism and the increasing geopolitical competition of Western countries with new centers of economic and political influence. Wars in the Middle East continue to have a destructive impact on the functioning of the global economy. The decline in cargo transportation leads to further disintegration of the previously established global markets. Global shipping companies have taken care of finding safer cargo movements. Producers and consumers of goods and services are forced to look for new partners within national and regional spaces, create new and activate existing transport corridors, which implies increased protectionism, and, therefore, leads to undermining the foundations of the global economy and the unipolar world.