Headline, July 23 2025/ ANTARCTICA'S : ''' REFUGE * -PEACE- SCIENCE '''

ANTARCTICA'S : 

''' REFUGE * -PEACE-

 SCIENCE '''

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THREATS STALK A LAND APART : MILAN is about 10,000 miles - as the albatross flies - from McMurdo Station - the United States main outpost in Antarctica.

But from late June to early July, representatives of 58 nations gathered in the Italian fashion capital for discussions about the remote continent's present and future.

Difficult questions hung over the meeting : Will the southernmost continent remain a place for science and peace? or will it become another object of territorial competition among great powers?

Antarctica is governed by Antarctic Treaty, in force since 1961, stipulating that it is a refuge for peace and science, with military activity prohibited and the environment protected. 

The document promotes international collaboration and lays aside the territorial claims of seven countries, which have all agreed not to act on their claimed ownership.

Ever since the treaty was signed, conflict has stayed farther north. '' It was known as Antarctic exceptionalism,'' said Jeffrey McGee, a law professor and Antarctic Treaty expert at the University of Tasmania in Australia.

Recently, though, that precedent has started to face strain. The world, Dr. McGee said, is turbulent, and its big players - the United States, Russia, China - are also the big players near the South Pole.

'' We'd be a little bit naive to think that this isn't going to affect the Antarctic Treaty system and the Antarctic region,'' he added, referring to the dynamics that shape the rest of the world coming to Antarctica.

China and Russia are working on expansions to their own scientific facilities in Antarctica and some experts suspect the countries could have nonpeaceful uses.

And a committee of the British House of Commons has questioned the purpose of Russian seismic surveys, suggesting they represented potential oil prospecting rather than scientific exploration.

[ China and Russia's treaty representatives did not reply to emailed requests for comment.]

The U.S. National Science Foundation - the primary agency that funds and oversees activities in both Antarctica and the Arctic - is proposing iceberg-size research cuts to polar science in 2026. 

Around 70 percent of the money currently in that pot for both poles could just vanish.

Given that science and civilian presence are the primary ways America exerts power in Antarctica, pulling back on research leaves some treaty partners feeling nervous about the future.

In the 1950s, the United States brought together the original signatories of the Antarctic Treaty, and it has since been a leader in the region. It has the biggest research station and is the only country with a base at the geographic South Pole.

'' The United States has the largest presence in Antarctica,'' said Bill Muntean, who was the head of the  U.S. delegation at the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in 2022 and 2023, and is now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

But even before this most recent budget proposal, the United States was flagging in its investments.

'' The United States has been doing a steady retreat from activities in Antarctica, '' Mr. Muntean said.  

" It's not closing any station, but it's not repairing them or building them in an expeditious manner, and it has been reducing some of its logistic capacity.''

The National Science Foundation's proposed 2026 budget includes further cuts in its Office of Polar Programs, which administers activities in the Antarctic under the United States Antarctic Program.

Those budget cuts, according to Mr. Muntean, demonstrate '' that this administration considers science in the polar regions in the same level of interest as it does science in any other sort of area.''

The Honour and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Antarctica, World Powers, and the Future, continues. The World Students Society thanks Sarah Scoles.

With respectful dedication to the Students of the World, and then Professors and Teachers.

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