trade route

No way were they created from the blood, sweat and beers of toiling engineers, massive amounts of human ingenuity melded with trillions in capital delivered along land, ship and jet trade routes.

Djibouti has only around one million inhabitants but lies on the strategic trade route of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on the Red Sea.

When insurgents finally gained control of the town of Kyaukme - on the main trade route from the Chinese border to the rest of Myanmar - it was after several months of hard fighting last year.

The growing Afghan-Pakistani terrorist hub threatens trade routes through the Persian Gulf, complicates counterterrorism coordination with regional powers, and could dangerously strengthen connections between South Asian and Middle Eastern terrorists, particularly in Syria.

Although the subject sounds abstract, the examples are comfortably concrete, from ancient trade routes to 19th-century canals and railroads to modern highway systems.