Fishing is an inherently international business, and so fishers inevitably brush up against the lines of geopolitics. In recent years, Norwegian fishermen have defied Russian Navy vessels conducting exercises in Norway’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). But now, Norway faces a particularly nasty piscatory threat, one that has been growing over many months: Russian fishers doubling as spies and saboteurs.

For decades, the international community has been trying to bring order to fishing, which is a multibillion-dollar industry that simultaneously feeds millions of people and threatens its own future if left unchecked. Overfishing has devastated marine life; waters that once teemed with fish now have just tiny fractions of the catch they once provided.

Fishing is an inherently international business, and so fishers inevitably brush up against the lines of geopolitics. In recent years, Norwegian fishermen have defied Russian Navy vessels conducting exercises in Norway’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). But now, Norway faces a particularly nasty piscatory threat, one that has been growing over many months: Russian fishers doubling as spies and saboteurs.

For decades, the international community has been trying to bring order to fishing, which is a multibillion-dollar industry that simultaneously feeds millions of people and threatens its own future if left unchecked. Overfishing has devastated marine life; waters that once teemed with fish now have just tiny fractions of the catch they once provided.

Since the oceans belong to no one, managing fishing stocks is a classic problem of the commons and a good indicator of the state of the international order. A 1946 convention brought some manner of order to whaling. The 1971 Ramsar Convention regulated wetlands. A 1980 convention regulated krill........

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