Cold calculations: The United States and the creation of Antarctica's atom-free zone

Abstract

In the autumn of 1959, twelve nations internationalized and demilitarized Antarctica with the creation of the Antarctic Treaty. Two articles of the Antarctic Treaty combined to ban nuclear weapons, nuclear tests, nuclear explosions, and the dispersal of radioactive waste in the continent, making Antarctica the first "atom-free zone" in the world. This article argues that no nation opposed the establishment of Antarctica's atom-free zone more than the United States, which desired to preserve its right to scientific exploration through the use of "peaceful nuclear explosions" (PNEs). But fearful of the environmental impact of Antarctic PNEs on their populations, southern hemispheric nations pressured the United States to concede on the Antarctic nuclear question. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union's mercurial behavior over the issue threatened to derail the Antarctic Treaty. Questioning its own rationale for PNEs in Antarctica and desiring to reap Cold War propagandist, geostrategic, and tactical benefits from a completed Antarctic Treaty, in the end the United States foreswore the right to PNEs in the continent.