Future Imperfect: Antarctica
His Majesty’s Government have… come to the conclusion that it is desirable that the whole of the Antarctic should ultimately be included within the British Empire.
-Sir Leopold Amery, Colonial Secretary, 1920.
When one thinks of Antarctica today one tends to picture smiling scientists in brightly colored North Face jackets photographing penguins and cataloguing ice cores. [i] Gone are the days when the standard image was of those same scientists posing in front of national flags rarely seen together, hallmarking the worlds only apparent “cold-war free” continent. Even further distant are the days when the image was quite different entirely; an image which, taken to its natural conclusion, sees Earth’s largest demilitarized zone keeping with the traditional norm for such places. This was an Antarctica which could have been, before the implementation of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, and which may yet still be.
In keeping with the zeitgeist of the era in which it came closest to reality, this other-Antarctica is “one vast potential airfield” for strategic bombers, an “advantageous base from which to launch thermonuclear weapons,” a place where atomic power fuelled the submarines and warships which patrolled its frozen shores and the tools which blew up or melted through ice to reach the exploitable minerals beneath, a prize for nations and a playground for spies. [ii]
Dr. Brian Roberts was the British Foreign Office’s chief polar advisor and a delegate at the Washington Conference from which the Antarctic Treaty was produced. “I wake up from a nightmare of papers suddenly realizing that I am not in the stuffy conference room but in my own stuffier bedroom,” he reflected in between the decisive sessions,
To describe my state of mind at these times… one really needs a kaleidoscope capable of mixing faces, languages, draft clauses, words and phrases out of context… I must remember that we want to dispose of ‘radioactive waste in Antarctica’ and not ‘fissionable material’ as in the present draft… There are sudden glimpses in my dreams of lobbying at Embassy cocktail parties, ice shelves being destroyed by atomic bombs, unauthorized submarines stuck under ice… exchanged scientists being tried by foreign courts… [and] teams of exhausted inspectors arriving unannounced at the most improbable of places and demanding food and lodging. [iii]
They are disturbing dreams which the Antarctic Treaty (and its to-date faithful observation) has temporarily quelled – but not put to permanent rest. Dreams which were fuelled by the military-led sovereignty-expanding missions that characterized Antarctic exploration at the time (the American Operation Highjump and British Operation Tabarin for example.)
The Antarctic Treaty – an arms-control treaty serving as the effective government for 5.5 million square miles of land – prohibits the use of the continent for military purposes and suspends (but does not eliminate) all territorial claims made prior to 1959. In response to interest shown by oil companies (and the potential disputes drilling would cause) the 1991 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty suspended all prospecting or commercial exploitation of natural resources by signatories for 50 years. In 2048 it will have to be renewed by three-fourths of the 26 current voting nations to the Treaty, and may be repealed before then by unanimous vote. This is by no means a guaranteed event. The Department of Energy notes in a factsheet:
Antarctica is considered to be part of the theoretical super-continent known as Gondwanaland, which separated near the end of the Paleozoic era and consisted of South America, Africa and Australia. And, because it once was completely covered in vegetation, many scientists believe it may hold one of the last supergiant oil fields yet to be discovered. The continental shelf of Antarctica is considered to hold the region’s greatest potential for oil exploration projects, and although estimates vary as to the abundance of oil in Antarctica, the Weddell and Ross Sea areas alone are expected to possess 50 billion barrels of oil – an amount roughly equivalent to that of Alaska’s estimated reserves.
Paula J. Dobriansky, Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs writes in a recent op-ed piece that the Antarctic Treaty is “a major accomplishment, negotiated during a difficult time in international relations and fusing bilateral and multilateral diplomacy. It has secured decades of valuable security, diplomatic and scientific cooperation and promises to deliver more of the same in years to come.” As such it could be seen as promising grounds for hopes of settling the competing claims in the Arctic Circle. This is certainly true – but it cannot be taken for granted (as Dobriansky notes, the situation in the North Polar region is much different than that in the South). It is probably debatable whether the success of the Antarctic Treaty is a product of political will or the practical difficulties Antarctic drilling and mining pose (compared to the relatively more accesible Arctic).
The Antarctic Treaty might also to some extent have been the peculiar product of a two-power world, a frozen (sorry) détente between East and West where both major factions acquiesced to the reality that their attention was better directed at battlegrounds closer to home.
In any event the recent history of Antarctica is a rare geopolitical success story. It is only best appreciated, though, by considering what came before, what might have been, and what can still be – particularly if the situation in the Arctic “goes south,” in both senses of the phrase.
[i] Or possibly taking a flamethrower to things from space…
[ii] Walter Sullivan, “Antarctica in a Two-Power World,” Foreign Affairs Vol. 36 (1957).
[iii] Quoted in Klaus Dodds, “The Great Game in Antarctica: Britain and the 1959 Antarctic Treaty,” Contemporary British History Vol. 22 No. 1 (March 2008).
