The Suez Canal is one of the most important chokepoints in the world due to its location, and 15% of the World's trade passes through it. As evident, by the instantly memed upon blockage of the canal, caused by the ‘Ever Given ship’. In order to fathom what the importance of this man-made marvel has been throughout the years, we have to take a quick peek into the illustrious history of the Suez Canal Before the existence of the Suez Canal, the only way to travel from Europe to Asia was to go around the African sub-continent. This process was quite monotonous, as the British had a monopoly over the entire trade route due to them controlling 'cape town' and in turn the 'cape route' but this all changed In 1854, when ‘Ferdinand de Lesseps’, a former French diplomat, persuaded the Viceroy of Egypt, Mohamed Said, to permit the construction of a shipping canal through the 193 km long bridge of land that connected Asia to Africa. With the Egyptians onboard, 10,000 workers, mostly forced slave laborers, began construction of this seemingly impossible waterway--one key thing to remember here is that all this happened in the 19th century when there were not any modern and sophisticated machinery to make the process of construction easier.
Ten years later in 1869, the impossible had been achieved and the Canal was ready, with the French and the Egyptians had control over it. Later, the major powers of the world signed a treaty that classified the Canal as 'Neutral Territory' (sadly, that is not how the world works).
By the 1950s, World War II was well underway and the Axis powers had their eye set on the infamous Canal. Britain deployed thousands of troops in the region and defended the Canal from a German-Italian invasion. After the war, Egyptian President General Abdel Nasser called for the control of the canal to go over to Egypt, citing his country to be its rightful owner. Due to their existing differences, the president denied Israel permission to use the canal. Naturally, this did not go well with the nations concerned, and shortly after this proclamation, an alliance of British, French, and Israeli paratroopers landed in the region of the Canal resulting in a fierce battle.
Ironically enough (The President of) the United States of America proclaimed that one cannot just show up and usurp, they even threatened all three nations with economic sanctions if they persisted in their attack. The threats along with constant pressure from the UN finally caused the alliance to withdrew forces by March 1957.
But the war didn’t end there: in the 1960s, Israel managed to capture land up to the canal, which meant that the Egyptians and the Israelis were now to face and by the ’70s, multiple wars had occurred between the two sides with temporary bridges being built over the Canal to transport weaponry and troops. This caused the Suez Canal to be closed for eight long years during which 15 ships got stuck there. After the intervention of international forces, the Suez Canal was finally reopened in 1975, with the U.S having to remove tons of live explosives from the depths of the canal. The Suez Canal is clearly vital to this day. The United States considers Egypt, a Non-Democratic state that regularly violates human rights laws, to be 'a key military ally' and pays $1.4 billion in aid. It was made clear by the Truman administration that their relation mainly exists as Egypt controls the Suez Canal and the USA needs Egypt to owe them favours.
Hence, after taking a little peek at the history of the Suez Canal, we can better understand the importance of this area and conclude that the Suez Canal has not only been of economic importance but has also been a show of commercial and maritime supremacy for nations throughout history.
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