The Silk Road and control of trade routes: The Silk Road connected East and West trade for millennia; whoever controlled the Western terminus collected tolls; the Muslim Conquest settled this; later the Ottomans controlled the Western terminus; Spain and Portugal bypassed this by seeking an ocean route to Asia, bumped into the New World, and found gold/silver, diverting them to heavy metals instead of luxury goods.
factualpending
Speaker
Sarah Cozad PayneEvidence Quote
“the Silk Road connected these two worlds east and west and there has been much money to be made on East West trade for a very long time and whoever controlled the Western Terminus there a big toll booth made a lot of money for a while... the Ottomans settled that that problem they controlled it and therefore the Spanish and the Portuguese got creative they decided to get to Asia the long way around except they bumped into the new world... bumped into gold and silver”
Source
NWC 2025 INS Lecture - Dr. Sarah Paine: Geopolitics, Cold War Lessons and the Way Forward— U.S. Naval War CollegeCreated: 8/11/2026, 7:04:38 AM
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