So I'm apologizing in advance if anything is totally off base. Also, it's really long. I've been absorbing a lot of information over a short period of time so I've probably missed a few key pieces. Feel free to unfuck me as necessary.
My curiosity in this started when I started reading about the different corps owning aircraft carriers and reading some random fluff referring to sales numbers (I'm pretty sure I read that YNT had sold 16 carriers to various governments and corporations - for perspective there are currently there are currently 19 aircraft carriers in service 10 if which belong to the States which are all "super carriers" the other 9 being at best half the displacement of a Nimitz class example) This seemed odd to me because really in the hands of a regional power an aircraft carrier is more a prestige purchase than a practical platform. Carriers are all about force projection, they require a complement of combatants to protect them, and in the Sixth World there just doesn't seem to me like there are any nations that would be able to justify the cost. I'm not trying to get into an economical debate about military spending in Shadowrun I'm exploring the role of a navy.
So aircraft carriers are kind of silly for most of the world players in Shadowrun. If anybody wants to debate that point I'll entertain in for a bit but it's not really that important to my overall train of thought here. On the other hand competition to have a strong blue water navy makes sense. Really the whole reason to have a true blue water navy is control of the SLOC (Sea Lanes of Communication/Commerce) and without one true superpower policing the seas somebody or somebodies would have stepped into that vacuum. Currently around 95% of America's foreign trade comes in or out by water and every year around $5 trillion worth of trade goes through the South China Sea alone. As of 2006 only 1% of global communications were satellite based. (Awesome Chart ) Admittedly these numbers will probably change a lot in the future. We're starting to reach capacity of our current undersea infrastructure so it's not unreasonable for a larger percentage of communications moving to satellite. Really this is a very very hypothetical argument of cost effectiveness using Shadowrun 2070 technology in regards to how the percentage is going to shift. The trade percentages are probably not really going to shift. Obviously on a country to country basis it will change (UCAS has more land based foreign trade than USA because there are more nations sharing a continent with it) but the overall percentage of the world's economy probably won't change too much. So why will there be competition to control the seas? Whoever owns the oceans gets to decide where these SLOC are. Obviously this is also driven by economics but if you try to drive your cargo through unpoliced waters to save a couple hours worth of fuel it's your fault if something bad happens. (And nobody would call the captain a hero and make a movie about it ) You could also make assumptions regarding new underwater cabling being laid in support of the Matrix and any deepsea projects the corps are founding.
So the Corporate Court will probably maintain a joint task force to patrol the seas to keep would be pirates from ruining everyone's day. I imagine that the individual corps would probably jockey for control of the task force since while SLOC(s) don't really change overnight whoever had the most control of the sea would have the biggest influence on where it would be safe to start developing new sea lanes. You don't need carriers for this. You need destoryers, frigates, corvettes. You could justify cruisers as part of the jockeying between the corps. Not useful for controlling the SLOC but incredibly important for corporate power struggles would be nuclear submarines. While I'm not implying MCT is going to have a fleet of boomers as a nuclear deterrent I can completely understand an argument for corps maintaining at least a small fleet of fast attack submarines capable of at least limited strike warfare. Also if the corp wanted to start trouble somewhere submarines would really be the only way to do it unnoticed.
What about the governments? I can fully understand countries like the UCAS, CAS, Japan etc holding on to some remnants of a blue water navy out of pride and stubbornness. Realistically though they could only afford/justify a brown/green water navy that is designed to defend coastal waters. So think a lot of smaller ships and diesel submarines armed with ASCM and Anti-Surface Torpedoes. Probably a lot of mines too if you're coastal waters include a choke point of some type (Straits of Gibraltar, Suez Canal, Strait of Hormuz etc) None of the governments as listed seem capable of reaching out and touching someone the way America can today. The Military Restoration Act might change this for the UCAS (especially if they reunite with the CAS) but even if a nation decided that they wanted to be top dog of the seas it would take a long time and a lot of money to get their navy up to spec which means plenty of time for corporations to ruin their fun.
Where this dichotomy in power gets interesting is when you bring in the concept of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ). The EEZ is basically how far out from your coast you get to control trade in. Mineral rights, commercial fishing fall under this. As of right now the "governing" body for this is the UN. The United Nation Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) laid out some incredibly vague rules for determining a nation's EEZ. In simplest terms it's 200 nautical miles. If this overlaps another country's claim then it gets sketch. UNCLOS offers some suggestions on how to resolve this (geographic expression, historical ownership etc) but it has been entirely ineffective in resolving any disputes. One of the reasons it has no teeth is that the US has not ratified it and since the US is the only true blue water navy there's no real physical threat against countries that ignore the rules. If you remember that dispute that China and Japan are having over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands then you are familiar with how ugly these disputes can get. Those islands in of themselves are pointless. However if either country gets recognized as the legal owner then their claim over the undersea gas fields northeast of the islands become much stronger. The South China Sea is another great example of conflicting claims.
Now the Corporate Court may or may not recognize a nation's claim to territorial waters. That would seem a little off flavor wise since the corps tend to play at least lip service to a nation's sovereignty - the whole reason they established and maintain extra-territorial status- so the corps could now use their control of the seas to resolve disputes in favor of whoever is going to award them the contracts. Again, more room for inter-corp competition. Add in the aqualogies and it gets even murkier.
So who are the winners? The Japanacorps (if they're united) probably own a good chunk of the seas. Since they tend to work closely with Imperial Japan they have the two pronged sword of AAA corp and national power. Depending on how closely aligned they are this could vary greatly. EVO owns YNT which I get the impression of being the premier shipbuilder but EVO is the most at odds with the "true" Japanacorps (Shiawase, Renraku, Mitsuhama). Saeder-Krupp probably has the tightest grip around Europe but they never struck me as a militant corp. Why buy a battleship when you have a dragon? Aztechnology is probably a huge winner in all of this. Similarly to the Japanacorps they can exploit any concepts of territorial waters but in their case they don't just work closely with the government they practically are the government. Add in the fact that they control the Panama Canal, which has probably become more important because goods moving by land from the east coast of North America to the west will now have to cross a few borders and possibly get taxed, and they have just gone through a war so they probably have the most disciplined navy.
Where are the hotspots? The South China Sea is probably still a huge clustercuss. With China fractured the matter would probably just be more complicated and while on one hand Japan may have just wholesale dominated the area Wuxing and Lung are probably doing everything they can to wrest control. The eastern Mediterranean leading into the Suez and extending all the way to the Persian Gulf is probably a battleground of sorts. With no clear national or corporate power in the Middle East everyone would probably be throwing in their hat to control the traffic heading through the Suez. The Gulf of Mexico(Aztlan) is probably another area of conflict. The CAS may not be able to directly compete with Aztlan but I'm sure they would do everything they can to at least prevent the Azzies from dominating the waters. I'm not sure what the state of the ice caps are in Shadowrun but the Arctic Circle is turning into an area of interest right now real world. The Northwest Passage is opening and suddenly the boundaries between Russia, Canada and the United States are becoming important. Real world the US doesn't have the icebreakers to beat the Russians to the punch though so Russia will probably walk away with the lion's share. Which means EVO is probably the biggest player up north. Unless you decide SK is playing the game which means more room for conflict.
This post is long enough but a final note is the Sea Dragon. Is she concerned at all about what metahumanity does out on the ocean? Where they do it?
I'm curious what everyone else thinks about this topic. So please tear me to shreds (gently) or just silently nod. And if you thought this was too long and you didn't read it don't tell me just go somewhere else.