Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC)

Sea Lines of Communication are the principal maritime routes linking ports, resources, and theaters, the arteries that carry roughly 80 percent of world trade by volume. Protecting SLOCs against interdiction, piracy, and closure of chokepoints is a recurring driver of naval force structure and forward presence. The concept ties commercial routing, war-risk pricing, and naval strategy together: a threat to a SLOC is at once an insurance event, a diversion problem, and a security operation.