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Choke point
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In military strategy, a choke point (or chokepoint) is a geographical feature on land such as a valley or defile, or at sea such as a strait which an armed force is forced to pass, sometimes on a substantially narrower front, and therefore greatly decreasing its combat power, in order to reach its objective. A choke point would allow a numerically inferior defending force to successfully prevent a larger opponent because the attacker would not be able to bring his superior numbers to bear.
Some historical examples of the tactical use of choke points are King Leonidas's defense of the Pass of Thermopylae during an invasion led by Xerxes I of Persia and the Battle of Agincourt, where Henry V of England decisively defeated the French when they were forced to attack his smaller army through a narrow gap in the Agincourt Woods.
The most important naval choke points were first identified by John Arbuthnot Fisher in his defense of continued British colonialism (important colonies in parentheses):
Choke points remain a prominent issue today in the global economy and shipments of goods, particularly oil.
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Encyclopedia
In military strategy, a choke point (or chokepoint) is a geographical feature on land such as a valley or defile, or at sea such as a strait which an armed force is forced to pass, sometimes on a substantially narrower front, and therefore greatly decreasing its combat power, in order to reach its objective. A choke point would allow a numerically inferior defending force to successfully prevent a larger opponent because the attacker would not be able to bring his superior numbers to bear.
Some historical examples of the tactical use of choke points are King Leonidas's defense of the Pass of Thermopylae during an invasion led by Xerxes I of Persia and the Battle of Agincourt, where Henry V of England decisively defeated the French when they were forced to attack his smaller army through a narrow gap in the Agincourt Woods.
The most important naval choke points were first identified by John Arbuthnot Fisher in his defense of continued British colonialism (important colonies in parentheses):
Choke points remain a prominent issue today in the global economy and shipments of goods, particularly oil. Twenty percent of the world's oil is shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, which has seen previous conflicts such as the downing of Iran Air Flight 655 by American missiles in 1988. The Suez Canal and Sumed Pipeline carry 4.5 million barrels a day. The canal was closed for eight years after the Six Day War in 1967. In many instances, alternate routes are non-existent or unpractical. For example, an alternate to the Suez/Sumed route required an additional 6000 miles around to Cape of Good Hope.
Other uses
"Chokepoint" is synonymous with "bottleneck". In network security, the firewall between a local network and the Internet is considered a choke point because any attacker would have to come through that channel, which would be guarded carefully. In graph theory and network analysis, a chokepoint is any node in a network with a high centrality.
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