Why is Antarctica Missing In Action in the Indo-Pacific Concept?
Why is Antarctica Missing In Action in the Indo-Pacific concept?
AS GLOBAL POWER SHIFTS TO THE ‘INDO-PACIFIC’ AND AN INCREASINGLY CONTESTED GLOBAL ORDER EMERGES, ANTARCTICA REMAINS OVERLOOKED.
WRITTEN BY BEC STRATING AND ELIZABETH BUCHANAN
11 October 2021
The widespread adoption of ‘Indo-Pacific’ strategies suggests maritime democracies are working to collectively constrain the rise of China as the geopolitical centre of gravity returns to Asia. In these Indo-Pacific narratives, the South China Sea features primarily as evidence of increasing strategic competition between the US and China and is cast as a litmus test for China’s efforts to re-write the ‘rules-based order’ in other maritime domains. Yet, China’s ‘lawfare’ activities have the capacity (and indeed intent) to erode the free and open Indo-Pacific in more places than the South China Sea. Beijing is increasing its presence in and entrenching itself to secure long-term access to resources in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.
However, the Southern Ocean and Antarctica are largely overlooked and often absent from Indo-Pacific constructs, which could have strategic implications for regional states concerned about maintaining an order based on international law. As we’ve previously written, grouping maritime theatres in strategic discourses often fails to provide an accurate picture of the internal geopolitical climates in each region. The Indo-Pacific strategic theatre tends to narrow the focus of states to policies devised to counter or contain China in a specific region and is suggestive of a grand strategy across maritime domains, which we argue require differentiated approaches.
Bridging the Indian and Pacific Oceans
The Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica quite literally links the Indian and Pacific maritime theatres but appears to be largely missing from the Indo-Pacific construct. This is odd given some of the most hard-core proponents of the Indo-Pacific concept are either claimant states to Antarctica, or signatories of the Antarctic Treaty. Washington, an original Antarctic Treaty signatory, is a strong supporter of the ‘free and open’ Indo-Pacific construct. Yet, it fails to even mention the Southern Ocean or Antarctica in its 2019 Indo-Pacific vision. The document’s regional map physically leaves off the Antarctic continent altogether. For the US, Antarctica remains a continent found in the Asia-Pacific and dealt with clearly by the INDOPACOM area of responsibility.
Haphazard inclusion of the Southern Ocean and Antarctica to the Indo-Pacific construct will ultimately bolster Chinese efforts to undermine and erode the ‘rules-based order’ that all Indo-Pacific like-minded partners appear so committed to upholding.
Some leading Indo-Pacific adopters — France, the UK, and Australia — are among the seven claimant states in Antarctica. France was the first European adopter of the Indo-Pacific construct in 2018 and its Indo-Pacific Strategy included references to Antarctica as a strategic interest in the Indo-Pacific region. It is captured in terms of “environmental security” and concerns of overfishing extending to “the Southern Ocean and as far as the shoreline of Antarctica”. The document further underscores Antarctica’s “global commons” identity and notes the need to “ensure the Antarctic is not turned into an area of competition”. This is problematic given strategic competition never left Antarctica. With the 2019 French Defence Strategy in the Indo-Pacific failing to make even one reference to Antarctica or the Southern Ocean, it would appear Paris is rather convinced of the need to protect Antarctica from competition but has no plans in place to deliver.
More recently, the UK’s 2021 Integrated Review of Security and Defence defined its Indo-Pacific vision and foregrounded plans to be “the European partner with the broadest and most integrated presence in the Indo-Pacific". Britain’s ‘Indo-Pacific tilt’ is heavy on working with like-minded partners to uphold the rules-based order. However, Antarctica is only referenced in terms of plans to “continue to uphold and strengthen the Antarctic Treaty System”. There is no reference to the Southern Ocean, and Antarctica is treated as a subset of British interests in the Indo-Pacific primarily with regards to the British Antarctic Territory.
Evidently, when it comes to Indo-Pacific conceptions, the US fails to cover Antarctica or the Southern Ocean, France wants to keep Antarctica from the pitfalls of competition yet has no plans to enforce rule of law at least militarily, and the UK silos Antarctica altogether as a sub-section of its Indo-Pacific agenda. All seemingly fail to articulate how their strategic image of the Indo-Pacific theatre maps onto the Southern Ocean and Antarctic regions, let alone clarify how these like-minded states plan to work together there.
Australia is a fervent Indo-Pacific wordsmith yet also leaves off the Southern Ocean and Antarctic region. A leader in the use of the Indo-Pacific regional concept since at least the 2013 Defence White Paper, Canberra’s early maritime rationale focused on its Northern and Eastern flanks but ignored the West, i.e., the Indian Ocean. A succession of Foreign and Defence Ministers from Western Australia contributed to Canberra’s shift in understanding its regional geography and priorities. Although the Indian Ocean gets greater maritime consideration today, Canberra’s Indo-Pacific concept continues to entirely neglect its third littoral ocean — the Southern Ocean.
Of course, if Indo-Pacific proponents did include Antarctica in their strategies, glaring gaps would emerge. Australia is the largest claimant state in Antarctica, with its Australian Antarctic Territory (AAT) constituting 42 per cent of the continent. Yet Australia’s maritime claims are not recognised by most of the international community, including the rest of its Quad partners (the US, Japan, and India). In fact, when Australia provided data on its Antarctic Continental Shelf claims in 2004 to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (even though Canberra requested the CLCS decision be deferred), these three states officially noted in response that they did not recognise Australia’s maritime claims. Australia’s most recent Defence White Paper in 2016 appears to utterly ignore this sentiment by underscoring that it aims to cooperate with “like-minded countries to prevent any militarisation of Antarctica which could threaten Australia’s sovereignty over the Australian Antarctic Territory and its sovereign rights over its offshore water”. However, this interest will be difficult to pursue given our closest so-called ‘like-minded’ state, the US, does not recognise Australia’s territorial claims or its sovereignty rights, nor do the remaining Quad members recognise Canberra’s maritime claims.
Looming strategic fallout from sea-blindness
Failing to incorporate the Southern Ocean and Antarctica into the Indo-Pacific construct has strategic implications. Competition dynamics are well observed in the Indo-Pacific, albeit focused narrowly on the South China Sea. While the unique governance structure afforded by the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) sets apart the zone of the Southern Ocean south of 60° latitude, this does not suspend strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific’s Southern flank, as great and rising powers have continued to remain active in the Southern Ocean and present in Antarctica. Greater attention must be paid to the strategic competition underway within the bounds of ATS, which manifests largely as ‘grey zone’ activities — working the system through such measures as dual-use technologies (which have scientific and military applications) and frustrating ATS consensus mechanisms (blocking environmental management plans).
The crucial question is whether the ATS can maintain the suspension of sovereignty claims and continue as an effective mechanism for Antarctic governance, or whether there will be a ‘scramble’ for Antarctica. Of course, this is effectively a neat test case for whether cooperation or realpolitik is likely to win out in contemporary strategic competition. Key Indo-Pacific proponents must adopt a dual-hedging strategy that at once supports the rules-based order underpinning the ATS, while also preparing for sharpened competition in the region. But across the board, Indo-Pacific conceptions appear to fail when it comes to articulating a strategy for the Southern Ocean/Antarctica.
Overlooking the Indo-Pacific’s Southern flank points to a larger problem with the Indo-Pacific ‘grand strategy’ discourse. The Indo-Pacific construct is one of geographic exclusion, which encourages the oversimplification of complex trends and wishful thinking about the ‘like-mindedness’ of states. At the very least, an Indo-Pacific concept that leaves off Antarctica will inevitably promulgate (incorrect) assumptions as to the utility of like-mindedness in navigating the Indo-Pacific century. Haphazard inclusion of the Southern Ocean and Antarctica to the Indo-Pacific construct will ultimately bolster Chinese efforts to undermine and erode the ‘rules-based order’ that all Indo-Pacific like-minded partners appear so committed to upholding.
It is likely states appear to leave off or compartmentalise the Southern Ocean and Antarctica from their Indo-Pacific constructs due to fundamental disagreements with sovereignty and territorial claims in the zone (not to mention competing national interests). But doing so creates a bigger ‘grey zone’ in which states like China can capitalise on the lack of unity between like-minded partners to chase their own strategic agenda, with consequences for maintaining an order based on international law. Of course, maritime democracies can (and should) agree to disagree when national interests arise but a unified pathway to deliver on a ‘free and open’ region must be reflected in subsequent Indo-Pacific strategies, and the Southern Ocean and Antarctica can no longer remain a footnote.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biographies
Dr Rebecca Strating is the Executive Director of La Trobe Asia at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. Dr Elizabeth Buchanan is Lecturer of Strategic Studies with Deakin University for the Defence and Strategic Studies Course (DSSC) at the Australian War College and a Fellow of the Modern War Institute at West Point. Image credit: Flickr/Defence Images.