Thalassocracy
From greek thalas = sea and kratia = dominion. Imperial political form ruling the seas by dispersing bases and enforcing rules for trade within its realm.
The term is used loosely to denote various conglomerates of power throughout History of Civilization. Delian League ruled by Athens is the best known example from the classical literature. The Phoenicians with their changing power centers: Tyre, Sidon, and Carthage is paradigmatic. This political form rests on a code for dividing spoils of war and contribution by members in terms of manpower and tax; the propensity of the benefactors to deliver manpower is low, creating asymmetries that makes Thalassocracy vulnerable to rebellion. Thalassocracies are marked by an inherent weakness in their center of power, stemming from the enormous and rapid accumulation of wealth, depending on concrete distribution of power: when the interest of the political form are dictated by the interest of actors in competition in a zero sum game, the descend into oligarchy is instant. When oligarchy is immanent, the survival of the political form depends on a centralization of decision-making in a government that can keep the oligarchy in check and postpone the demise, a demise that seems all but certain, due to the propensity of Thalassocracy to start seemingly senseless wars as result of particular interests being pursued by powerful actors. These interventions are pursued at great cost of legitimacy and wealth, making Thalassocracy prone to demagoguery (Perickles) and again, to the pursue of meaningless military endeavours. The Phoenicians, with their loose affiliation of peoples and their tactics of raid and trade managed to uphold the Cathagenian empire for quite some time until it got destroyed by Rome, characterized by Alexandr Dugin as Tellurocracy, i.e. a land based empire. USA, and to a lesser degree, The British Empire (displaying a somewhat more robust power center than that of the USA) are modern examples of political forms that can be understood as Thalassocracies.