PERRY CENTER OCCASIONAL PAPER MARCH 2021 Real and Imaginary Issues: Governance of the Arctic and the Antarctic Andrés Borjas and Dr. Fabiana Sofía Perera WILLIAM J. PERRY CENTER FOR HEMISPHERIC DEFENSE STUDIES National Defense University Cover Caption: China has recently built two powerful icebreaker the Xue Long and the Xue Long 2, as part of an effort to expand the country’s presence in Arctic and Antarctic waters. Credit: CGTN News. About the authors: Andres Borjas is a Junior at Tufts University studying International Relations and Political Science. His research interests focus on great power competition, economic statecraft, and authoritarianism in a global context. Andres interned as a Research Assistant at the Perry Center from June 2020 to January 2021. Dr. Fabiana Sofía Perera is an Assistant Professor at the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies. Prior to joining the Perry Center, Fabiana was a Rosenthal Fellow at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Under Secretary for Policy, Western Hemisphere Affairs. Fabiana holds an MA in Latin American Studies from Georgetown University and earned a PhD in Political Science from The George Washington University. For her doctorate, Fabiana completed fieldwork in Venezuela and Ecuador. Her research and analysis have appeared in numerous publications including The Washington Post, CNN.com, and War on the Rocks. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and are not an official policy nor position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense nor the U.S. Government. Editor-in-Chief: Pat Paterson Layout Design: Viviana Edwards Real and Imaginary Issues: Governance of the Arctic and the Antarctic Andrés Borjas and Dr. Fabiana Sofía Perera WILLIAM J. PERRY CENTER FOR HEMISPHERIC DEFENSE STUDIES PERRY CENTER OCCASIONAL PAPER MARCH 2021 Real and Imaginary Issues: Governance of the Arctic and the Antarctic Andrés Borjas and Dr. Fabiana Sofía Perera The Arctic might be the one place in the world where the real and imaginary boundaries of the West and its challengers meet. Unlike at the southern pole, the Arctic is a region that has been inhabited for thou- sands of years and one in which the West and its challengers border each other. The countries that lay claim to the Arctic face each other in a contentious situation that creates challenges to broad multilateral governance. By contrast, in the Antarctic, a region that has no permanent population, multilateralism has flourished as a way of governance. This lack of a permanent Antarctic identity coupled with expan- sive multilateralism has enabled challengers to the West with no direct connection to the region - China in particular - to gain a foothold there despite geographical distance and lack of historical ties. This paper first focuses on the development of the Arctic Council, the region’s most important multilateral forum and covers how claimant states in the High North - despite successes in some areas - struggled to address the questions of regional identity and more substantive issues such as security cooperation. A revanchist Russia in the 21st century threatens states attempting to address issues of Arctic security through smaller multilateral fora. In these cases, the problem of Arctic identity often serves as the keystone that would make or break cooperation. The paper then engages with the issue of non-Arctic states aspiring for a foothold in the region by explaining the development of the membership hierarchy and most importantly the weaponization of Arctic identity in this process to exclude powerful aspirants, particularly China, from becoming a legitimate regional actor. China’s actions in the Arctic are then explored further, illustrating Beijing’s deep engagement with the region and its frustrations with the problems that Arctic identity poses for its goals. Lastly, the system of Antarctic governance is explained and compared to the politics of the Arctic that also has implications for China’s rise in the polar regions. 3 Perry Center Occasional Paper, March 2021 Caption: A bird’s eye view of the North Pole shows the many nations that have strategic interests in the Arctic region. Credit: U.S. Department of State. Defining the Arctic and Antarctic The Arctic comprises territory from eight states surrounded by a mostly frozen ocean. In this northern- most part of the world defining boundaries is complicated by the shifting nature of the landscape and the intersecting and overlapping multilateral regimes that govern the space. Most commonly the Arctic is defined as the region that lies north of the Arctic circle (66o 33’ N) though there are other definitions. In the United States (U.S.), the Arctic is “all United States and foreign territory north of the Arctic Circle.” Similar definitions are also proposed by other Arctic states.1 Due in part to their remoteness, the polar regions - the Arctic and the Antarctic - have seldom weighed heavily on global consciousness compared to traditional security issues that dominate the discourse in the U.N. General Assembly, the one institution supposed to be a bulwark against anarchy in the international system. Nevertheless, their place outside the center of attention is a testament to the success of the regional and international frameworks that have governed these regions. In the challeng- 1 National Science Foundation, “Arctic Policy and Research Act of 1984 (amended 1990),” 1984, https://www.nsf.gov/geo/ opp/arctic/iarpc/arc_res_pol_act.jsp#112. 4 Perry Center Occasional Paper, March 2021 ing political and natural environment of the Arctic, fora for collaboration such as the Arctic Council have featured prominently and successfully created frameworks for environmental regulation, energy exploitation, and maritime crisis management. Similarly, collective action has dominated Antarctic governance. The 1959 Treaty of the Antarctic and the subsequent Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) have successfully worked as tools for preserving the Antarctic’s security and environmental stability and insured the continent and its waters remain primar- ily a “scientific preserve” used “exclusively for peaceful purposes.”2 Caption: The Antarctic Treaty was signed on December 1, 1959 by twelve countries and the first meeting was held on July 1, 1961 in New Zealand (shown here). Credit: Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC). The ATS defines the Antarctic as the territory south of 60o. Below this line no country has territo- rial claims. North of it, Australia, Norway, and the United Kingdom have territorial claims through the Heard and McDonald Islands, Bouvet Island, and South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands respec- tively. Climate change, coupled with an increasingly contentious global environment, presents novel challenges for the governance of the Arctic and the Antarctic. Both regions currently experience ex- 2 Heather Conley, Terry Toland, Jamie Krout, A New Security Architecture for the Arctic: An American Perspective (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2012), 13. 5 Perry Center Occasional Paper, March 2021 treme environmental costs of climate change and are warming two to three times faster than the rest of the world.3 Moreover, the return of great power competition as a driving force in international relations has implications for the Arctic and Antarctic security. The rapidly evolving Russia-China-U.S. dynamic threatens to awaken frozen conflicts and will impose added stressors on the capable yet fragile multilat- eral frameworks of each region.4 In the current moment of heightened and growing risk, it is imperative to understand how the Arctic and Antarctic systems have historically preserved security and protected the poles from broader global conflict. Furthermore, upon closer look, it becomes apparent that, despite the similar challenges faced by both the polar regions, there are key differences in each of their gov- ernance structures. As such, what are the factors that have shaped their diverging paths? What lessons can the multilateral systems in the Arctic and Antarctic learn from each other in order to become more robust structures better suited to preserving polar security in the face of developing threats? From the development of governance models in the polar regions, it is clear that the Arctic and Antarctic are heading down diverging paths. In the High North, it is apparent that an “Arctic identity” enabled by a natural set of territorial claims and exacerbated by the current context of contentious great power relations has been a significant obstacle to broad multilateral governance in the region. By con- trast, the lack of “Antarctic identity” has allowed multilateralism to enjoy primacy in the management of the Antarctic, a situation that enabled non-Antarctic countries - China in particular - to gain a foot- hold in the region despite geographical distance and lack of any territorial claim. The Arctic as an idea has been integrated into the national identity of the states that border the region. In the U.S., Alaska’s annexation was tied to the expansionistic romanticism of Manifest Destiny and the northernmost state is still considered to be the country’s “last frontier.”5 For Canada, its Arctic identity is part of the nation’s “core myth” that serves to distinguish its sovereignty from the United States.6 In Russia, historical and geographical claims have been used to present the country as an “Arctic Great Power,” an identity that emphasizes its “uniqueness” with re- 3 Kendra Pierre-Louis, “Antarctica Is Melting Three Times as Fast as a Decade Ago,” New York Times, June 13, 2018, https:// www.nytimes.com/2018/06/13/climate/antarctica-ice-melting-faster.html; Eric Niiler, “The Arctic Is Warming Much Faster Than the Rest of Earth,” Wired, December 4, 2019, https://www.wired.com/story/the-arctic-is-warming-much-faster-than- the-rest-of-earth/. 4 Abhishek Saxena, “The Return of Great Power Competition to the Arctic,” The Arctic Institute, October 22, 2019, https:// www.thearcticinstitute.org/return-great-power-competition-arctic/.