Michael Gardiner, Ryan Morrissey & James Hurley
The Antarctic region historically has minimal significance among states. Despite a brief scramble among colonial powers to stake claims in the 19th and 20th centuries, the continent has avoided being the site of conflict—a stark contrast to many other examples that involve overlapping borders with resource potential. In large part this is because the Antarctic region has been extremely challenging for states to establish and sustain a presence, complicating efforts to extract utility from it, or to enforce claims.
Emblem of the Antarctic Treaty (Wikimedia)
From 1959, the Antarctic Treaty codified the territorial status quo and enshrined the region’s preservation for peaceful, scientific purposes. Militarisation and commercial resource-extraction are forbidden. Human installations there have largely followed these rules, emphasising research into aerospace, astronomical, and climate science. Norms accompanying legal codes have further spared Antarctica from entanglement in states’ strategic and security policies.
Antarctica’s assumed lack of strategic importance presents a significant blind spot. The latest iteration of the U.S. National Security Strategy, for instance, does not mention Antarctica even once. Other actors, however, have been more attentive, with Chinese research expansion in the region and Russian resource exploration but two examples. This piece will discuss the growing recognition of Antarctica’s strategic value to the international community in the context of geographic, resource, and power considerations. Each of these matters challenges many assumptions underpinning the international community’s perspectives of the region more broadly.
Antarctic Treaty Limitations
From 1959, the Antarctic Treaty has codified the region’s preservation exclusively for peaceful, scientific purposes, and states that the fruits of these endeavours should be made available to the global commons. States such as Australia and New Zealand have relied on the Treaty to ensure a stable and peaceful Southern frontier. This has seen a level of success, with conflicts such as the Falklands War having been prevented from spilling over.[1]
However, there is widespread scepticism over the resilience of the rules-based international order, which presently empowers the Treaty. Amid competition, lawfare has become increasingly common, wherein actors alternately brandish and disregard international agreements, entirely according to strategic convenience. Rather than a double-edged sword, law becomes more like a rifle, and the willingness to apply it tends to be seen as a matter of the end with which one is presented.[2] Great powers justify actions on the basis of legality, regardless of how convincing the claim. As a result, lawfare presents a handy medium for grey zone operations. Long-term, this will have ramifications for international recognition of the rule-of-law.
This is particularly problematic for the Antarctic Treaty. While military activity is prohibited, it does permit a limited footprint for peaceful assistance. The ambiguous and the deniable live in the grey zone, which dual-use projects and generalised allusions to peace inherently create. Without clearer definitions, great powers interested in changing the status-quo will find the Treaty’s ambiguity a useful cover for grey zone operations. The satellite ground stations mentioned earlier are an excellent example, but far from the only one. Perhaps some form of scientific militia could emerge to enforce territorial claims, mirroring China’s maritime militias in the South China Sea.
Problems With Resource Scarcity
The climate crisis is a defining issue for the 21st Century. A major consequence has been the destruction of environments that produce resources critical to sustaining human life. This carries significant implications for food and resource security, particularly among developing states and those dependent on external sources to support their populations.
Also under threat is the Antarctic continent itself, which continues to melt under increasing polar temperatures. Antarctica holds an estimated 60% of the world’s freshwater in its ice, making this process a prime contributor to rising global sea levels.[3] However, this also makes it an alluring water source for those lacking such reserves. Existing outside of international concerns, and without strong protections under international law, this bounty is a temptation that could draw even further attention to Antarctica.[4] Moreover, as resource crises deepen, it is unlikely that Antarctica will be viewed as a panacea by only one state—presenting a powerful motivation to enter and compete in the region.
Aerial view of of Browning Peninsula Casey, Antarctica. (Will Salter/Getty)
On the other hand, could these environmental concerns reduce the possibility for instability? Climate change is a global issue, and recognising this could unite the international community as much as divide it. The Antarctic could be stabilised via active cooperation between all concerned parties. This reality currently appears far-fetched; such galvanisation has not meaningfully emerged so far, with many communities falling into acrimony and unrest as a result of climate change’s effects.
Adding the tensions of great power competition to the mix exacerbates divisions even further.[5] Many have accepted climate change as a potential flashpoint, with President Obama stating in 2015 that “[c]limate change did not cause the conflicts we see around the world, but drought and crop failures and high food prices helped fuel the early unrest in Syria.”[6] Such events have not prompted the unity to decisively address the effects which precipitated them. Once sacrosanct because of its isolation, environmental pressures abroad are drawing attention incrementally towards the Antarctic.
Shrinking Deterrents: Geography and Climate
Antarctica encompasses Earth’s Southern geomagnetic pole. This isolation, combined with an extremely hostile climate, impacts the cost-benefit equations of any actor considering a presence there. The conventional thinking runs thus: even when state claims overlap, there has been virtually no friction, because these geostrategic factors make enforcement of borders impractical.
This conventional wisdom no longer holds. Technological advancement has dramatically shortened Antarctica’s distance from potential stakeholders and blunted the hardships of polar exploration. Ease of access to the continent is now an order of magnitude greater than under the realities which informed the Antarctic Treaty, thanks to improvements in communications and transportation. These new realities permit a continuous physical line of communication, providing everything from scientific equipment to the necessities for human habitation. Travel to and from the continent is now at a stage where it is even being commercialised, through cruises and overflights for wealthy tourists.
Life on the continent itself, while challenging, is no longer an insurmountable problem. Antarctica hosts a steadily increasing population, with technological solutions evolving to mitigate or take advantage of the harsh conditions. Australia’s aerodrome project, in addition to its security implications, demonstrates the feasibility of supporting a perennial Antarctic population.[7] Moreover, life on Antarctica is not the exile from the wider world it once was, as connection is sustained through tools like satellite communications. Current information technology also allows more tasks like temperature monitoring to be automated, streamlining the human element in Antarctic operations—allowing more specialisation and variety in sustainable populations.
The previous twin deterrents of geography and climate do not prevent increasing levels of governmental attention towards the Antarctic from manifesting as policy, as technological progress has dramatically lowered barriers to entry. The scientific and resource benefits of an Antarctic presence are now beginning to outweigh the costs for previously uninterested states, which will influence the interactions that are able to take place moving forward.
Antarctic Great Power Competition: Greyzone in the White Zone?
The U.S. is preparing for an era of great power competition. The 2017 National Security Strategy and the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) Strategy each indicate a zero-sum posture against peer competitors. Both documents reflect a greater pessimism towards engagement strategies, and the tacit rejection of ideas that “inclusion in international institutions and global commerce would turn them [rivals] into benign actors and trustworthy partners.”[8] Observers have plenty of cause to question the efficacy of the concept of great power conflict in U.S. planning; the 2017 document does not explicitly define it, and there are several issues with the Free and Open Indo-Pacific’s cohesiveness as an actual strategy.[9] Regardless, great power competition will retain a privileged place in Washington’s lexicon for the foreseeable future.
The 2017 National Security Strategy reorients U.S. focus away from counter-insurgency, and towards perceived great power threats. The planned withdrawal from Afghanistan by 11 September 2021 illustrates this redirection of Washington’s foreign policy efforts, despite the Taliban’s enduring threat to Afghan stability.[10] Both Chinese and U.S. military spending continue to rise, and together they now account for over half of the world’s total defence expenditure.[11] Although opportunities for limited great power cooperation remain, this has failed to offset the twin tensions of a mounting security dilemma and anxieties over a potential power transition.
Such competition will not overlook Antarctica as a potential arena. Its latent potential as a significant source of seafood, geominerals, and energy is tempting to revisionist powers on the global stage. In 2020, Russian-backed company Rosgeologia undertook seismic surveys in the Riiser-Larsen Sea to assess offshore oil and gas potential.[12] China has considerable interest in Antarctica’s natural resource pool for profit potential, and to support a billion-strong population reliant on energy imports, calling Antarctica a “global treasure house of resources.”[13,14] For Beijing, this presents a unique opportunity to diversify global shipping options, as Antarctica’s location offers routes through South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, Chile’s Cape Horn, and Australia’s South-East Tasman Cape.[15]
Antarctica also houses advantageous locations for military infrastructure. Satellite ground stations are dual-purpose, serving civilians and the military, and enable states to leverage orbital infrastructure for command-and-control systems.[16] Advanced ground stations could give states significant operational advantages in speed, accuracy, and information—all useful for projecting power.[17] Brady notes that “any state that dominates the air space of Antarctica...could potentially control air access to all Oceania, South America, and Africa.”[18] Planners in Beijing are aware of the benefits of Antarctic power projection, with China investing in icebreaking capabilities for naval vessels, such as the Snow Dragon 2.[19] For Northern states, Arctic naval power could likewise be translatable into Antarctic power, should the desire strike.
China's icebreaker Xuelong (Sea Dragon) docks at an ice covered area in the Antarctic during a 2014 expedition. (Sina Weibo/China Daily)
This is not to suggest all great power activity on Antarctica is for illegitimate or hawkish purposes. Scientific research remains an integral feature of regional cooperation. However, the dual-use capacity within various installations opens the region up to grey zone operations. The grey zone is an operational space that does not cross the threshold required for war outright, emphasising extra-legal and plausibly-deniable tactics.[20] Globalisation creates significant costs to conventional uses of force, allowing states to covertly pursue goals in the grey zone without risking unnecessary escalation.[21]
China is no stranger to this concept, with island-building in the South China Sea constituting a significant grey zone operation challenging the hub-and-spoke regional security model favored by the U.S., international maritime laws, and the borders of multiple Southeast Asian states. While the U.S. and its traditional partners have responded with freedom-of-navigation operations and denunciations over China’s unlawful activity, these have been ineffective in altering China’s behaviour. Undeterred, China has doubled-down on regional grey zone operations, encouraging fishing vessels and the Chinese Coast Guard to challenge territorial disputes and maritime claims.[22,23] Hundreds of Chinese vessels remain present in the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone despite protests from Manila.[24] The difficulty of successfully deterring grey zone operations makes using them attractive to competing actors.
With great power rivalry expanding into multiple theatres, Antarctica should not be presumed uniquely untouchable.
Conclusion
Antarctica can no longer rely on its distance to protect itself from the calculus of states. Trends including great power competition, expansion both of and into the grey zone by many actors, the fragility of international law, and mounting resource crises all mean that long-held assumptions around Antarctic geopolitics are being challenged. Meanwhile, its harshness and physical distance are posing less and less of an obstacle to interested parties. After centuries of international neglect, Antarctica’s isolation may have set the stage for a hard pivot in global interest. Discarding these holdover assumptions will be important to recalibrate our understanding of the region’s strategic relevance. Without reform to the Antarctic Treaty system, and great powers assuming collective responsibility, Antarctica could even become a potential catalyst for outright conflict.
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