The return of Antarctica and the origins and future of potential conflict: the Eisenhower Administration's formulation of U.S. Antarctic policy, 1953-1959.

• Author: Dobransky, Steve
• Position: Report

Introduction

Many books and articles have been written on group decision making in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy. A very large number of these works have focused on a relatively few issues that have been crises or high priorities, i.e. highly publicized issues. U.S. foreign policy decisions on the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Vietnam have been examined very thoroughly. Many scholars have investigated these and other cases in an attempt to develop group decision making theories and models. Graham Allison's three models from Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (1971) have been given considerable attention and are considered a high watermark of scholarship in terms of group decision making. The three models are: rational actor, organizational process, and governmental politics. Allison's models have been applied to many case studies. Through testing and analysis, a number of the strengths and weaknesses of Allison's models have been revealed. Allison's governmental politics model, designated Model III, was criticized significantly right from the start (Krasner 1972, Art 1973, Perlmutter 1974; and others to the present). The criticism of Model III could be warranted, but it is based mainly on studies that have examined other crises and high priority issues. Decisions on foreign policy crises and high priority issues are relatively rare in terms of number and duration of appearance. In order to assess fully Allison's Model III, there must be more critical examinations of the foreign policy formulation process on issues that are not crises or high priorities, i.e. gradual and long term foreign policy issues.

This paper helps to redress the gap in testing Allison's Model III. It analyzes and evaluates the Eisenhower Administration's formulation of Antarctic policy from 1953-1959, using mostly declassified documents from the Foreign Relations of the United States. Although its focus is on an issue from several decades ago, the study's relevance remains, as does the existing U.S. Antarctic policy. The U.S. government's policy interactions on the domestic and international levels since the 1950s give us a detailed comprehension of continued tension underlying international Antarctic relations and the potential sources of future conflict. Antarctica is estimated to have a huge amount of natural wealth and energy resources, and it could become a primary target for major exploitation in the future, especially after detailed exploration is completed. Thus, analyzing and evaluating the Eisenhower Administration's Antarctic policy is critical to understanding Antarctic policy today and the possible developments and peaceful solutions for tomorrow.

Conceptual Framework

Jonathan Bendor and Thomas Hammond's "Rethinking Allison's Models" (1992) provide a very useful framework for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of Allison's Model III in explaining the Eisenhower's Administration's formulation of Antarctic policy. They pose a number of questions regarding the bargaining process in the Executive Branch in order to explain foreign policy decision making. This study addresses their five key questions:

1) Do Executive Branch decision makers always have different goals?

2) Does conflict imply that policymakers have different goals?

3) Why would a President bargain with other Executive Branch officials?

4) Do subordinates have political support outside the Executive Branch?

5) Do the President's subordinates have informational advantages? (1)

With some modification in wording, the questions above can be used to assess the consistency of Model III's assumptions with the Eisenhower Administration's formulation of Antarctic policy. Allison argues in Model III that decision makers tend to have different conceptions of policy interests, goals, and courses of action. He describes the decision making process as consisting of a high degree of conflict, bargaining, and compromise among the major participants involved. He contends that the outcome of the decision making process, i.e. the political resultant, is a mix of preferences that emerge from all the conflict, bargaining, and compromise. (2) Regarding the five questions presented by Bendor and Hammond, Allison would answer in short "yes" to the first two questions, "it is the norm" to the third question, "possibly" to the fourth questions, and "definitely" to the last question.

This paper challenges Allison's Model III by using Bendor and Hammond's framework to explain the Eisenhower Administration's formulation of U.S. Antarctic policy. Since most foreign policies are gradual and long term like Antarctica, the lessons from this particular case study are very relevant and significant to this day. The dynamics of group decision making are highlighted in this study. Rarely is there a foreign policy case in which scholars can follow the entire evolutionary process from the beginning. The apparent lack of immediate urgency to the Antarctica issue may have encouraged government officials to be more straightforward in discussing the issue in meetings and, later on, for the government to release all the key documents related to the policy. The Eisenhower Administration set everything in motion in 1953 and the comprehensive policy was established by 1959. During those six years, there were many Executive -level meetings that contributed to the overall formulation of policy. This paper examines those meetings. It relies primarily on the declassified documents in the Foreign Relations of the United States series 1952-1954, 1955-1957, and 1958-1960. The declassified documents are a very valuable source that shed much light on the inside policy making process, which few other case studies tend to use or have available.

A number of books and articles have been written on Antarctica, although most have been on the Antarctic Treaty (1959) and the international political and environmental dimensions of Antarctica. (3) Little has been done on utilizing the declassified documents and following the entire policy formulation process on Antarctica, let alone challenging Allison's Model III with Bendor and Hammond's conceptual framework using Antarctica as the case study. This paper raises some serious questions regarding the value of Allison' Model III to most U.S. foreign policy issues and decision making processes. It challenges many perspectives to this day regarding the importance and relevance of Allison's Model III. It lays the foundation for more comprehensive, comparative, and theoretical studies involving the formulation of U.S. foreign policy, from the Antarctic issue to well beyond. And, it concludes with a new understanding of the Executive Branch's decision making process, and it makes recommendations for further scholarly research. The entire analysis provides us with important insights into today's Antarctic regime and the possibility of its fracture and collapse in the future.

Early History and Context of U.S. Antarctic Policy

The Eisenhower Administration began its first term in office in 1953. Inheriting the Truman's Administration's foreign policy, the administration ordered immediately a full review of all current U.S. foreign policies, including Antarctica. The review process on Antarctica took approximately one and a half years to complete. The final outcome was NSC 5424/1, which established U.S. Antarctic policy to 1957. This paper analyzes and evaluates the review process and NSC 5424/1 and, then, follows the decision making process up to NSC 5804/1 in 1958, which leads directly to the Antarctic Treaty in 1959 and current U.S. Antarctic policy. First, a brief historical context will be given on the Antarctic issue, in order to provide a better idea of the key factors that existed at the time of the 1953 review process.

The Antarctica issue for decades rested primarily on both conflicting and compatible territorial claims. Seven countries had made formal claims to portions of Antarctica, based upon their geographical locations. The seven countries were Britain, France, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, and Chile. The U.S. had made no official claims on Antarctica prior to 1953, and it did not recognize the claims made by other countries. The U.S., however, declared its right to make a claim in the future to the unclaimed areas and parts of the claimed areas of Antarctica. The U.S. would base its claim on evidence of discovery, exploration, mapping, and unofficial claims made by private American explorers who had been to Antarctica. (4) International law, it should be emphasized, was not completely clear on the precise conditions for establishing and, more importantly, maintaining and developing territorial claims to a large, uninhabited continent. It was believed by many high-level government officials and international lawyers that, aside from discovering and claiming a territory, physical and verbal demonstrations of sovereignty had to be made on a regular basis. None of the seven formal claimants were willing to risk putting their claims before the International Court of Justice (aka the World Court) or an international arbitration panel. In fact, some of the claimants considered a willingness to risk a court decision or arbitration as a sign of weakness and a questionable claim in itself. They, in their opinion, had legitimate claims that should not be contested by anyone else. (5)

Antarctica became a significant international political issue in the late 1940s, when a number of conflicting claimants aired openly their differences and acted in an apparently hostile manner towards each other. Since the claimants were U.S. friends and allies, the Truman Administration felt compelled to intervene in order to prevent violent conflict, reduce international tensions, and resolve peacefully the Antarctic issue, at least for the time being. The Antarctic problem subsided quickly before any significant diplomatic action...