The coming polar war Antarctica is rich but vulnerable

Britain has interests around both the North and South Poles. As far as its vast British Antarctic Territory is concerned, that’s clearest around black gold. Beyond that striking comparison with the North Sea, experts believe that the most recent oil discovery, in May 2024, could meet the entirety of global demand for almost 15 years. 

The North Pole, for its part, is important less for physical resources — and more for communications. Modern staples like GPS and satnav can only happen because many satellites connect to Earth via Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago some 2,000 kilometres north of Oslo. Whether it’s home food deliveries or Nato missile guidance, both would be impossible without Svalbard’s network of satellite ground stations. No less important, these barren islands also host a vital high-speed internet cable. No wonder Sir Tony Radakin, head of Britain’s armed forces, has stressed that the region represents a fulcrum of British security.

Now, however, this security looks threatened. In January 2022, someone cut the main subsea cable in the area. In April this year, the cables at the Evenes Airbase were disabled too, especially ominous as it’s where Norway and Nato keep a fleet of F-35 aircraft. The Norwegians have investigated both events and concluded that there is no clear culprit. But some believe that they’re skating around the problem because they don’t want to provoke a direct confrontation with Russia. 

Given all this, at any rate, it’s unsurprising that Whitehall is upping its presence both north and south. In 2023, for instance, the Ministry of Defence announced it was founding a Royal Marines camp near the Norwegian town of Tromsø. As I write, the UK is also upping its presence on the other end of the planet too, promising repairs to a key RAF base on the Falkland Islands. This surely makes sense: its Argentine rival has clearly noticed that the Antarctic oil fields stretch as far north as the Falklands, with Britain preparing to tap oil from 23 wells in the Sea Lion oilfield.

In practice, though, Britain’s commitment to its territorial defence remains suspect: just look at its surrender of the Chagos Islands and Diego Garcia. Sensing a cash cow, meanwhile, Argentina’s foreign minister has now vowed to “recover full sovereignty” over what he calls Las Malvinas. Britain officially insists its position is “unwavering” — but Keir Starmer appeared, at least at first, surprisingly reticent about keeping the Falklands British.

Even if Britain suddenly turned its foreign policy on its head, meanwhile, it seems unlikely that it’d actually make use of its vast polar hoard. For one thing, London strictly abides by the 1998 commercial protocol of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, which prohibits seabed extraction. The UK seems equally unwilling to approve of deep-sea mining in its oceanic preserves, particularly now that scientists have discovered so-called “dark oxygen” some 4,000 metres beneath the surface of the chilly Southern Ocean. To quote Nick Owens, director of the Scottish Association for Marine Science: “The fact that we’ve got another source of oxygen on the planet other than photosynthesis has consequences and implications that are utterly profound.” 

Yet whatever Britain’s ethical scruples, it’s now becoming much simpler to harvest resources at both poles. One reason is climate change: with the ice sheets melting, the goodies below are easier to access. Another factor is technology: China recently unveiled the Kaituo 2, a 14-tonne deep-sea mining vehicle that can dredge the polar seabeds below a record-breaking 4,000 metres. Britain, for its part, has no such machines. 

There are signs, in short, that the polar regions could soon be subjected to an industrial rush. Indeed as we approach 2048 — the year the Antarctic Treaty can finally be renegotiated — Beijing and Moscow are already trying to gather enough allies to overturn the 1959 ban. They’re prospecting too: it’s no accident that the recent mega-discovery in the British Antarctic Territory was found not by the Royal Navy, but by Russia. Nor are the West’s headline geopolitical foes alone here. As one Iranian rear admiral recently (and somewhat implausibly) claimed, the Islamic Republic has “property rights” in Antarctica. 

The interest of national governments is echoed in the private sector too. Chinese investors recently tried to buy Søre Fagerfjord, which was the last remaining parcel of private land on Svalbard. China thought the 60 square kilometres of pristine wilderness was a steal at $326 million. In the event, the Americans and British apparently warned their Norwegian counterparts of the deal, and the acquisition was squashed. Unperturbed, China is teaming up with Russia to invest in mining firms, scientific research stations and policy programmes right across Svalbard. That echoes a long-standing Russian policy: the Svalbard town of Barentsberg has long been dominated by Russian miners, many of whom later went off to fight in Ukraine. 

While, therefore, our minds may first go to Ukraine or the Middle East, the poles could yet become geopolitical flashpoints. Svalbard, after all, is just 400 nautical miles from the Russian mainland. Elizabeth Buchanan, head of research for the Royal Australian Navy, has described the South Pole in similar terms. Fair enough: what if Russia or China started drilling there, or else erected critical infrastructure, just as Beijing has done in the South China Sea? 

Nor is this necessarily just a theoretical threat. China currently has five research stations right across Antarctica. The 1959 treaty specifically prohibits military activity anywhere on the icy continent. In practice, though, it’s hard to tell what China is up to because they seem to use radar to block overhead satellites. Rumours abound that they park their planes sideways on their runways, so that no one else could land even if they wanted to. At the same time, Western observers worry that the People’s Republic’s new Qinling Station is being used to spy on Britain and her Five Eyes intelligence partners.

Given all these opportunities for conflict, at any rate, could Britain and its friends defend their varied polar interests? Perhaps not. Faced with draconian spending cuts — day-to-day spending on defence has been slashed by nearly £10 billion since 2010 — the Royal Navy now only has 16 “major surface combatants” in its fleet. To offer just one point of comparison, the Chinese navy is the world’s largest, boasting almost 800 vessels of various sizes. 

To be fair, 2021’s Aukus treaty means that London could rely on US and Australian support in any Antarctic conflict. And there are signs, too, that London isn’t totally insensitive to the threat. Apart from dispatching troops and repairing airfields, Britain has also led the charge in encouraging the building of two entirely new subsea cable systems to Svalbard. One is the so-called IOEMA Project, which is due to go live by 2027. NORDUnet is another. Linking Svalbard with Scandinavia — as well as Japan and other Western allies — it’ll bypass Russia and China entirely.

Yet Britain’s resolve will only truly become clear if and when a contest for polar assets — or indeed fully-fledged polar war — finally arrives. And in the event, any showdown could come sooner than we think. Long-term oil reserves are one thing. But Russia also has a profound strategic interest in the Arctic in the here-and-now. Last February, Norway’s normally reticent intelligence service publicly warned that nuclear weapons could be present on Russian vessels in the High North. No less important, Sweden and Finland’s accession to Nato also brings the possibility that Western nuclear weapons might be deployed in the Arctic too.

China, for its part, needs the Arctic as well. With sea lanes in the Red Sea threatened by the Houthis, and the Panama Canal with problems of its own, Beijing needs a reliable route from its port at Dailan to Rotterdam in Europe. The Arctic is the obvious choice here, not least when Chinese ships can now make the journey in less than 25 days, and when its economy would surely struggle without it. Britain, in short, seems unwilling or unable to exploit its polar bounty. But its future here may ultimately depend on decisions taken by others — something Keir Starmer and his admirals would both do well to remember. 

---

Dr. Pippa Malmgren was an economic advisor to President George W. Bush and has been a manufacturer of award-winning drones and autonomous robotics.

DrPippaM