(Commentary) Tug companies in the Far East might be expected to recoil in horror at a recent report published by the US National Bureau of Economic Research. Written by academics at the University of Virginia, the study concludes that a military conflict in the South China Sea would force most shipping heading for Asia and the US west coast from the Middle East and Europe to divert around the south of Australia. The massive additional shipping costs would lead to a significant decrease in economic activity around the world, but with, “dire effects on countries at the epicentre.”