"there Should Be A Pillar 3 In Aukus: Polar Security"

CANBERRA — Antarctica is no longer a remote zone insulated from geopolitics.

In her latest report, Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior fellow Elizabeth Buchanan argues that resource insecurity, strategic competition and environmental change are converging at the poles, weakening the Cold War-era arrangements that helped keep them stable.

Her warning carries particular weight for Australia, which claims 42 percent of Antarctica yet lacks the presence and capabilities to substantiate that claim.

In this interview, Buchanan examines what President Donald Trump’s interest in Greenland and his comments on the Falkland Islands could mean for the Antarctic Treaty, how China’s polar ambitions are being reinforced by new nuclear-powered shipping, and why Australia’s withdrawal from Macquarie Island has exposed a wider strategic vulnerability.

She also makes the case for a polar security pillar within AUKUS.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity 

What is the root problem Australia faces in asserting its interests in the Antarctic? 

I think it's just the inability for various iterations of leaders in Australia, sadly, to think in a longer-term strategic frame.

It is so short-term driven to the point where it's not any leader's responsibility to make sure we've delivered on priorities in the Antarctic.

So someone needs to be accountable for our external territories, of which we have many. Our national defense strategy [and] the defense strategic review, none of them reference our external territories: Christmas, Cocos, Norfolk Islands, the Australian Antarctic Territory.

We have to go back to the basics of what are Australian national interests, which starts with territorial integrity.

What specific Australian interest would be at risk if another power was undermining our claim to the 42 percent of Antarctica that we claim? 

That's a really good question.

Think in terms of strategic potential: Scientists have for decades had the resource deposits mapped out. But think of water, an overlooked commodity in international security. Our claim covers about 30 percent of the Earth’s fresh water, which is what we lack here on the Australian mainland.

It’s a basic human need and a future resource need that we know is coming down the line. That is lost prosperity [if we lose our Antarctic claim].

You could think of it as a water mine.

Exactly. We can sell that water to the world.

That matters more than a risk of attack. Establishing bases or pointing missiles at us is something they [China or the U.S.] can do in plenty of other places right now, quicker.

We claim 42 percent of the Antarctic land mass. That doesn’t feel tenable. Where do we stand on the Antarctic Treaty [which preserved Antarctica for peace]?

It is an amazing piece of international cooperation, but it's a holding pattern. We know right now we cannot defend our claim.

The treaty gives us breathing space. It is quite a cheap insurance policy for 42 percent of a continent that we have no kit to maintain.

But is the treaty meaningless if we fail to invest now? 

That is what we need to really come to terms with.

We need to find different ways of investing or we will be the next victim of the new international system. There are some serious costs to this new world order that is emerging and I think as Australians we should be a bit more vocal about what are the bare minimum aspects of this world order that we would expect or we would fight for.

For me, it's things like freedom of navigation in the high seas, or a treaty that has kept a continent demilitarized.

The treaty may not be broken, but you need a plan for if it breaks. 

We need to have, I think, some plan for the worst-possible scenario.

We don't have that because the echo chamber of people that are advising on policy are the folks that do go to those annual treaty meetings. Yeah, they're all surrounded by people who represent their country at national level in Antarctic affairs. They're all very much interested in keeping the treaty going. The people making these decisions at this annual meeting are not reflective of the forces of geopolitics elsewhere.

What activities most clearly demonstrate that China is acting like a claimant for territory?

Polar research and polar expeditions and innovation and research endeavors are viewed and taught to younger generations as part of the great Chinese development arc. It says that we shape policy and impact around the world and in space. It’s a point of pride.

In the Arctic, they've self-inserted themselves. They started as a near-Arctic power and now they’re just an Arctic power.

We did that in the ‘60s and ‘70s and Australians then knew what our Antarctic legacy was. We were stewards of the region.

Given we are Antarctic experts — 80 years of continuous expertise — why have we felt the need to collaborate with China on these issues? 

It comes back to the fact that the government refuses to fund the national ambition that it should in Antarctica.

There has to be more ambition and funding for research. It’s not a nice-to-have and allocating it is not something you leave to the nerds — and I say that as one of them.

It’s extremely hard to do work that makes a mark in this field when you’re fighting for every grant from a federal funding pie for strategic research that dwindles every year.

Where are the biggest blind spots on Chinese collaboration? 

Universities. You don't want to restrict international collaboration because at the heart of academia and research is, of course, solving problems with partners. But we too blindfully execute these partnerships nowadays because of the allure of the money that some of these other [national] states can offer, whether it's the tech, the labs.

It’s not entirely a case of nefarious action. The problem is there is no single point of accountability.

Surely that's the point of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet?

Yeah. Or you use your newAustralian Government Consulting agency. How is that not a great body for going into our universities and helping them assess their weak links? So you collaborate with international partners in a way that enables researchers to do what they love doing and to unlock all sorts of great things and findings, but also protect Australian prosperity.

We need fresh eyes on the issue because technologies have changed, people's ambitions have changed.

Speaking of new ambitions, we have a U.S. government with enhanced polar ambitions — which you’ve written about before, on Greenland. 

Although it was an off-the-cuff remark from Donald Trump, to say he wouldn't recognize UK sovereignty over the Falkland Islands is interesting for me because we’ve seen the Greenland Arctic interest, and a lot of U.S. work to secure the Alaskan frontier and the Aleutians. But we haven't heard anything clear on what Antarctic policy might be under Trump.

I would not be surprised if there are discussions happening about the utility of remaining a signatory of the Antarctic Treaty [the 1959 treaty which reserved the continent for peaceful purposes, and which later banned commercial mining]

That’s interesting because leaving the Treaty frees one to participate in a mining arms race? 

A resource boom, yes. You've got exactly what the tech boys of Silicon Valley are interested in Greenland for, but in Antarctica: vast cool spaces for data.

Much harder to access though.

Harder to access, but the U.S. have had a base for 80-something years at the geographical South Pole. It’s a huge facility, so the signal has always been there.

The U.S. ran a nuclear power reactor for a few years until it started leaking and they had to pay all sorts of money to clean that up in the 1970s [the Antarctic Treaty bans nuclear testing, but not reactors].

China is now looking at rolling nuclear-powered cargo ships off the production line in the next 12 months. They’re intended for the Northern Sea Route [Arctic north-west passage] but their existence undercuts the whole idea of Australia having an Antarctic leadership role.

There’s no longer a need for “gateway cities” in the way Hobart thinks of itself, when there are nuclear-powered vessels that can load up at home and go straight to Antarctica. Soon the only limitation is feeding the crew.

Australia has a plan for modernizing its Antarctic infrastructure that is going to take up to 10 to 15 years, but China and India and Russia are planning to do modular builds in eight to 10 weeks.

Does Australia need to be more explicit with the U.S. about what we think our territorial claims are, or about how we are relying on each other vis-à-vis China?

It is a non-starter to talk about our claim with the U.S. because they outright reject our claim. The treaty sets aside Australia’s claim [and six others], in a “you got it, we’ll deal with it later” way. But the second part says the Soviet Union and the United States protect their right to lay a claim to any or all of Antarctica at a future date.

The U.S have strategically put their major station at the geographical South Pole. You've always had military people there.

The second we get modular nuclear reactors, they're going to be shipped.

So we shouldn’t act like China is the only one massaging the treaty. The U.S. is the best at it.

Can you imagine a world where there's a pillar three of AUKUS: The U.S., U.K. and Australia working together to defend their interests in the South?

Absolutely, in the polar domain there could be a Pillar 3 of AUKUS — a polar security compact.

It's the roof, the ceiling and the floor of our Earth.

We have strategic interests and rights that are protected under international law. It could even strengthen the Antarctic Treaty because you've got two partners — the Australians and the Americans — who vehemently reject each other's positions on territorial integrity on the continent, working together.

AUKUS makes Australia think long-term, AUKUS is a framework Australians understand. It empowers [the government] to act on our Antarctic insecurities in a meaningful way without just kicking the can down the road.

The Arctic obviously is interesting if you look at future maritime trade. [But] if you get Asian countries orientating their trade north and utilizing the Arctic, it's a problem for the Americans because then they've got a congested Bering Strait. It’s also a reorientation that makes Australia even more isolated in the world.

Are you saying Australia’s only competitive advantage is its talent in that operating environment?

That's all we have. It used to be our geography. It could have been operating a year-round runway in Antarctica but we canceled that project [after spending more than $19 million on consultancy fees].

Who canceled it?

Sussan Ley, under Scott Morrison’s government [in 2021].

And the Australian Antarctic Division also announced they’re evacuating all personnel from Macquarie Island.

That strikes me as a risk: Leaving a strategic asset for the taking in the Southern Ocean.

The people are being pulled off for their psychological safety — because it would be horrible to watch thousands of seals die next to their research station from bird flu. These human adults can manage that. A huge part of the vetting to be an expeditioner is to do with your resilience and your ability to deal with the potential of [incidents like this].

This is fully Australian territory, with electricity, satellite ground stations and a deepwater port that we have staffed for 80 years. It is an anchor point in the Indian Ocean that is a valuable piece of real estate.

So our Pacific diplomatic strategy is to stop China getting a deep-sea port in the Pacific, because it would change our whole defense calculus, and we’re now leaving one unoccupied in the Southern Ocean.

We’re not only leaving it behind, we publicly announced our departure six weeks in advance — in the harshest strategic environment since the Second World War.

They could go in and rebuild it [at least].

Or deploy special forces.

I think the issue would be whether or not our defense partners have enough extreme weather suits. Do we even have the capability to clothe our personnel for that kind of operational environment?

But this does bring me to [Minister for Climate Change and Energy] Chris Bowen and his COP negotiations in the Pacific. Put the cost aside: it’s performance. But what’s going on in Antarctica is operational, not performative.

Part of your duty statement as a minister is looking after vital national interest. [But] we are completely adrift when it comes to maintaining any control over what happens on our southern flank.

It’s fine to say that strategically we have decided to focus on our northern approaches. And they've picked, you know, the northeast as our primary theater of strategic interest.

That doesn't mean that the south can't have its own interests. Security is not one-directional.

How much money would it take to secure our interests in the South? If we’re willing to spend $368 billion on AUKUS it is surely a small portion of that. 

It is a small percentage, but it’s not the money that is the primary problem, it’s that we can’t change our strategic calculus.

We could buy more toys, but the ambition levels are a fantasy discussion

We now have China for the first time ever in its five-year planning cycles removing all reference to the Arctic and Antarctica. They now talk simply about being a polar great power. It's now just another domain for them [rather than a distant priority]. But this is a domain in which we have a territorial vested interest.

Who should drive our more strategic policy around this? 

It's a wicked problem, right? You’ve got the sheer climate issue of ice carving and the melt. We [could] just operate Antarctica as a national wildlife park, with freshwater fisheries that we distribute in a fair and equitable way. That's fantasy shit. We know it's a non-starter.

But all Australian governments have seen this and responded with “this isn't going to blow up in my lap next year or today. We can kick that can down the road.”

What first steps are needed to make our Antarctic claim credible?

We need to modernize our conception of what a gateway city is. It’s not competitive to say that we are the space for your icebreaker to come to dock to refuel, or for some research collaboration to happen. It was a huge strategic misstep not to build the year-round runway in East Antarctica.

We also need to use our weight as a middle power. Work together with the other countries that don’t have the resources or the will to substantiate their claims in any real way, but they want the treaty to continue. The EU, U.K., Ukraine. Canada is not a consultative party to the Treaty yet, but they have the skills.

Right now the country that seems so invested in reshaping facts on-the-ground is China.

Buchanan’s most recent report, Polar Security: Strategic Competition at the Ends of the Earth.