FEATURE
Science, geopolitics and the
governance of Antarctica
International Polar Year 2007–2009 had three predecessors 125, 75 and 50 years ago. These
international research efforts were not free from geopolitical interests.
In November 2007 the media drew
attention to various countries’ attempts
to extend sovereignty rights over ocean
floors on adjacent continental shelves,
in response to a UN commission on
the delimitation of the continental
shelf. Russia, for instance, claimed
that the Lomonosov Ridge was
part of its landmass, a claim that
would extend Russia’s seabed by
1.2 million square kilometres. In response,
Canada vowed to increase its icebreaker
fleet and to build new Arctic military
bases, and Denmark sent its own scientists
to the Arctic to seek alternative evidence
that linked the Ridge to the Danish
territory of Greenland. On the other side
of the world, Britain was making similar
claims to a large area of the seabed around
the British Antarctic Territory as well as
the Falkland Islands and South Georgia.
The leader column in the Guardian
newspaper controversially referred to
this as ‘icy imperialism’ and lamented
the continued politicization of the
Antarctic continent; a continent that was
meant ‘to be a place apart, a place for
peace’1. These events, and the responses
to them, highlight a belief that science
has effectively banished geopolitics from
Antarctica. We would argue instead
that Antarctic science has been, and
still is, embedded in wider geopolitical
contexts: it is a way in which nation
states have maintained a presence on the
continent, dominated affairs and collected
geo-strategic intelligence.
As an evaluation of the 1957–1958
International Geophysical Year (IGY),
the largest international scientific
undertaking until the present time,
Walter Sullivan’s Assault on the Unknown2
predicted that the success of the IGY
would lead to further international
scientific undertakings in the future.
Noting the landmark contributions that
the IGY made to space exploration and
rocket and satellite technology, he also
speculated that if “disarmament should at
last be achieved, a bold program of space
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exploration would help avoid an economic
crisis during the period of readjustment”.
More generally, Sullivan argued that the
IGY had helped build “scientific bridges
across political chasms”.
Antarctic science is a
way in which nation states
dominated affairs and collected
geo-strategic intelligence.
On the one hand Sullivan was quite
right in his prediction that the IGY
would encourage further international
activities — there have been several
internationally cooperative activities since
the IGY, the most recent being the fourth
International Polar Year (IPY4), which
is now in full swing. On the other hand,
science could not be expected to usher in
a world free from international politics or
even to keep itself immune from it.
EARLY SCIENTIFIC INTERNATIONALISM
The first International Polar Year (IPY1),
which ran between 1882 and 1883,
was fuelled by the moral philosophical
ideals of scientific internationalism, as
a means for advancing knowledge and
the ‘brotherhood of man’. It was also the
product of the late nineteenth century
mania for exploration. Working on
the assumption that the collection of
global geophysical data was beyond the
means of one nation, Karl Weyprecht, a
lieutenant in the Austrian Navy and an
Arctic explorer, proposed a concerted
period of polar research involving various
nations, which was endorsed by the
International Meteorological Organization
in 1879. Twelve countries participated
and fifteen expeditions to the poles were
completed. Beyond the advances to science
and geographical exploration, a principal
legacy of IPY1 was setting a precedent for
international science cooperation.
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Scientific internationalism
suffered a setback during and after the
First World War, but as technological
advances made international travel and
communication more prevalent in the
post-war period, the ethos was revived.
The second International Polar Year (IPY2)
was held during the solar minimum of
1932–1933. Proposed and championed by the
International Meteorological Organization,
IPY2 advanced the polar year format.
Forty-four nations pledged their support and
helped advance meteorology, magnetism,
atmospheric and radio science, although
significant amounts of unpublished scientific
data were lost during the Second World War.
IPY2 was conducted in the midst
of a period of geopolitical posturing in
Antarctica3. Britain had made the first
claim to a portion of Antarctic territory in
1908, and after the First World War, along
with Australia and New Zealand, pursued
a policy aimed at the gradual acquisition of
the Antarctic continent. However, the grand
designs of Britain and the Commonwealth
were challenged by sectoral claims made
by the French and Norwegians in the
1920s and 1930s. The German Antarctic
Expedition of 1938–1939 and Chilean
and Argentinean claims, in 1940 and
1943 respectively, continued the power
struggle: the sectors claimed by Chile and
Argentina overlapped with those claimed
by Britain (Fig. 1). The British War Cabinet
responded by dispatching a secret naval
expedition, codenamed Operation Tabarin,
to establish a permanent British presence
on the Antarctic Peninsula (which became
the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey
after the War)4. Throughout this period the
USA maintained an interest in the continent
through a series of extensive expeditions
but made no claims and rejected the
legitimacy of the claims of others.
THE INTERNATIONAL GEOPHYSICAL YEAR
The International Geophysical Year
celebrated the 75th and 25th anniversaries
of IPY1 and IPY2, respectively. Its
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UK
Argentina
Norway
Chile
New Zealand
Figure 1 Distribution of the seven territorial claims in Antarctica. Note that the USA and Russia do not make a
specific claim. Data were taken from the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research.
legendary origins were at a 1950 Maryland
dinner party, attended by a handful of
leading scientists and administrators,
including Lloyd Berkner, Sydney Chapman
and James Van Allen5. Berkner suggested
that it was time for a new polar year,
although when the proposal was put to
the World Meteorological Organization,
the focus was broadened into a worldwide
study and the name of the event was duly
altered. The IGY was to include a wide
range of scientific activities as part of its
remit, including solar studies, glaciology,
oceanography, meteorology, geomagnetism,
ionospheric physics, seismology, cosmic
ray analyses and upper atmospheric studies
using rockets.
The IGY was often promoted to the
public by its organizers and journalists
such as Sullivan as a venture in
international scientific cooperation that
was intended to overcome ideological
scuffles and diplomatic bickering.
Indeed, the event was staged as a coup
in diplomacy at the height of the Cold
War, with the participation of the Soviet
Union secured through the World
Meteorological Organization, albeit one
that backfired in part with the launch of
Sputnik on the eve of the IGY2. The 1950s
were an era when scientific prowess
could symbolize the superiority of one
political ideology over another6. Indeed,
the Cold War greatly expanded support
for an enormous range of scientific
research, on the basis of the argument
that ‘military preparedness required
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Australia
France
massive increases in the federal support
of science’7.
In relation to the IGY in particular,
Ronald Doel argues that it “was not
simply a remarkable exception to
Cold War hostilities […] Rather, it was
intimately connected with the national
security aims of the leading nations
involved in the effort”8. Berkner was an
important link between science and the
US Cold War military establishment,
particularly the national security
infrastructure. For him, international
scientific cooperation and data exchange
offered a potentially powerful, yet
neglected, vehicle for promoting
American interests and values as well as
for the collection of intelligence of use to
the American state.
The IGY’s claim for US governmental
support was substantially bolstered
by its potential value as a vehicle of
foreign policy: as a means of providing
certain information required by the
military, and as a source of scientific,
technical and geostrategic intelligence7.
President Eisenhower’s security and
foreign affairs advisors endorsed the
Antarctic component of the IGY for
just this reason9. The IGY was also
useful as a way of enticing the USSR to
make public statements and analysable
demonstrations of its technological
abilities, especially in rocketry. In other
words, the IGY had important foreign
policy and intelligence dimensions as
well as scientific ones.
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IGY’s geographical coverage was
broad, including both the Arctic and
Antarctic, the equatorial region and a
band of stations closely spaced along
three lines of longitude, extending from
pole to pole10. Given the extensive and
dispersed nature of the resulting data,
the IGY’s organizing committee, the
Comité Spécial de l’Année Géophysique
Internationale, resolved that all data
should be freely available to the world’s
scientists and scientific institutions. Three
World Data Centres were established, one
in the USA, another in the USSR, and a
third divided across Europe, Australia and
Japan. A complete set of IGY data was to
be deposited in each, partly in response to
the large-scale loss of data after IPY2.
THE IGY AND ANTARCTICA
The potential value of Antarctic exploration
for the US government was large. For
instance, the Deputy Undersecretary
of State, Robert Murphy, noted that “if
existing United States [Antarctic] rights are
to be maintained, and I believe that they
should be, the record of past American
achievement in the Antarctic must be
continued. The Antarctic phase of the IGY,
although not planned for that purpose, will
help to preserve and strengthen United
States’ rights in the Antarctic”7.
At the same time, the importance of
harnessing the efforts and resources of a
large number of the world’s nations and
scientists was seen to be particularly acute
in the Antarctic, where comprehensive
coverage of continental processes was
beyond even the capacities of the major
superpowers. For instance, Nate Gerson,
vice chair of the US Antarctic Regional
Committee, argued that an “Antarctic
Expedition can be thought of not as
a luxury but as a necessity in today’s
technological age. In the field of
geophysics alone the value of the results
brought back by a soundly planned
expedition will far exceed its cost”11.
As noted earlier, the USA, along
with the USSR, had not made claims to
any portion of Antarctica and refused
to recognize the claims of others3. The
statement by Robert Murphy summarized
the USA’s alternative strategy regarding
the continent. The proposal to give
all nations free and full access to the
continent during the IGY, including the
right to establish bases in other nations’
claimed territories, served the US
government’s desire to accrue potentially
valuable information about the world’s
regions otherwise denied to them.
More traditional forms of territorial
politics went on in Antarctica too of

course — the USA, for instance, claimed
the symbolic South Pole as the site of one
of its stations during the IGY, leaving
the Soviets the much less prestigious
Pole of Relative Inaccessibility and the
Geomagnetic Pole12. In turn, both the
USA and the USSR deliberately located
research stations right across the Antarctic
continent, causing some consternation
amongst claimant states who tended to
remain within the limits of their own
claimed territory.
A LABORATORY FOR SCIENCE AND POLITICS?
The scientific projects carried out in
Antarctica during the IGY were many
and varied (for one example, see Fig. 2).
Their success paved the way for further
integration of scientific discussion and
planning, which took place through
the Scientific Committee on Antarctic
Research — an international organization
devoted solely to the promotion, planning
and coordination of research in the
Antarctic. Twelve countries, including the
USA, UK and USSR, made contributions
to its initial budget. In 1959, the countries
operating the Scientific Committee on
Antarctic Research signed the Antarctic
Treaty, which entered into force on
23 June 1961. The Treaty was an agreement
to set Antarctica aside for peaceful
purposes and particularly for science,
whilst additional claims to portions
of Antarctic territory were forestalled.
This helped to defuse tensions between
signatory members, especially with regard
to those nations whose claims to Antarctic
territory overlapped (notably Argentina,
Chile and Britain) and to allay concerns
about the intentions of the superpowers
with regard to making territorial claims.
Antarctic science certainly saw
significant investment from the USA
and the USSR under the Antarctic Treaty
regime. The Americans, for instance,
established the US Antarctic Research
Program, which has funded research in
Antarctica ever since. This investment was
in line with US financial and logistical
support for the physical earth sciences
more generally in the early years of the
Cold War, which were assimilated into
the highest levels of national security and
foreign policy planning8.
Indeed, Antarctic science from the
late 1950s onwards was part of a scientific
‘arms-race’, where the US and Soviet
governments each continued to invest in
work there primarily because the other
was also doing so, even if the continent
lacked the Cold War strategic significance
of the Arctic region. Doel has argued that
“knowledge of the physical characteristics
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Figure 2 Photograph of the US Antarctic IGY seismic and glaciological traverse from Little America to Byrd
Station in February 1957. This was one of a number of such traverses conducted by American scientists.
of critical places around the globe was
both a requirement of and stimulus for
new research in the earth sciences” and
that “Cold War tensions helped make
Earth’s polar regions valuable new targets
of research”8. Both the IGY and the
Antarctic Treaty facilitated the gathering
of information about the globe that would
otherwise have been very difficult to
secure. Although Antarctica has been an
open space for discovery since the Treaty,
the reality is that nations other than
the superpowers have operated mostly
within the spatial constraints of their
logistics. (For an example of how Antarctic
surveying developed in the context of the
IGY and the Antarctic Treaty and the role
of US logistics, see ref. 13.)
It should be noted that IPY4
has resulted in several international
programmes that span individual nations’
logistical arrangements. For example,
at Dome A in Antarctica, the USA, UK,
Germany and China will explore the
Gamburtsev Mountains, and around Dome
C, the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand
will examine an extensive region of
subglacial highlands and lowlands. Owing
to IPY4, it appears that international
collaboration is at the forefront of agendas
once more. That said, international
collaboration is always geopolitically
embedded, reflective of geopolitical
interests and has geopolitical consequences.
Indeed, scientists and policy makers
have used international collaboration
during and since the IGY to bring the
administration of the continent into the
© 2008 Nature Publishing Group
FEATURE
CHARLES BENTLEY
orbit of national interests. Geopolitics has
never gone away in Antarctica, and science
has been a part of this.
References
1. Leader. The Guardian (18 October 2007).
2. Sullivan, W. Assault on the Unknown (Hodder & Stoughton,
London, 1962).
3. Dodds, K. Geopolitics in Antarctica (John Wiley, London, 1997).
4. Dodds, K. J. Imp. Commonw. Hist. 24, 392–421 (1996).
5. Fraser, R. Once Around the Sun (Scientific Book Club,
London, 1959).
6. Hamblin, J. D. Isis 93, 1–27 (2002).
7. Needell, A. Science, Cold War and the American State
(Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, 2000).
8. Doel, R. E. Soc. Stud. Sci. 33, 647 (2003).
9. Dodds, K. in New Spaces of Exploration: Geographies of
Discovery in the Twentieth Century (ed. Naylor, S. & Ryan, J.)
(in the press).
10. Fogg, G.E. A History of Antarctic Science (Cambridge Univ.
Press, Cambridge, 1992).
11. Gerson, N. C. Planning for US National Committee for the IGY,
Antarctic Regional Committee, US National Archives (1953).
12. Collis, C. and Stevens, Q. Cult. Geog. 14, 234–254.
13. Turchetti, S., Dean, K., Naylor, S. and Siegert, M. British Journal
for the History of Science (in the press).
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Klaus Dodds and Charles Bentley for their
comments on this paper, and the archivists at the National Archives
and Records Administration, USA, for assistance during fieldwork.
We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Leverhulme
Trust (grant number F00144AV).
Simon Naylor1*, Martin Siegert2*,
Katrina Dean3 and Simone Turchetti4
1
University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus,
Penryn, Cornwall, TR10 9EZ, UK;
2
School of GeoSciences, University of
Edinburgh, EH9 3JW, UK; 3British Library,
Euston Road, London, NW1 2DB;
4
History and Philosophy of Science Division,
University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK.
*e-mail: s.k.naylor@exeter.ac.uk;
m.j.siegert@e.ac.uk
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