Antarctic Territorial Interests of United States: Location and Geopolitical Sense
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24215/29533430e030Keywords:
Antarctica, United States, territorial interests, geopolitics, scientific activityAbstract
In the 1959 Antarctic Treaty signed in Washington, the United States established its position of not recognizing any claim of sovereignty and of reserving its rights over the entire white continent. This stand, maintained until the present, expresses the existence of territorial interests that, unlike formal claims with established delimitations, remain hidden.
With the methodological presupposition that in Antarctica the activities —even if they are scientific— reflect territorial interests, the cartography and official documents of the scientific investigations carried out between 1956, the beginning of the uninterrupted Antarctic presence of the United States, and the austral summer of 2024-2025 are analyzed.
In search of a spatial pattern along the temporal line, the location of the scientific deployment carried out in the period 1956/2024-2025 is systematically contrasted with the declassified secret operations planning document of 1955, reconstructed by the author from two archives, which delineated an area of territorial interest. The article concludes by defining the Antarctic territorial interest of the United States and the geopolitical sense of it.
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