By William Muntean and Wilder Alejandro Sánchez

The United States has significant national interests in Antarctica, but it currently lacks the maritime capacity to secure them. The United States sent more commercial vessels (42) and citizens (over 50,000) to the Southern Ocean than any other country during the 2023/2024 season. The United States, unlike many other nations, can also conduct unannounced inspections of stations and equipment in the region. However, the U.S. government is reducing its icebreaker capacity in the region by removing two vessels from service, continuing to rely on one heavy icebreaker that is beyond its expected service life. As of this writing, the United States has yet to take concrete steps to design and build appropriate vessels to ensure continued access in the region.

While Washington has acted to eventually address icebreaker shortcomings in the Arctic, it has not taken similar steps to protect its Antarctic interests. Therefore, as it starts the lengthy process of planning and building Polar Security Cutters for Antarctic operations, the United States should increase its collaboration with South American countries. Doing so will strengthen already-positive relations with key South American countries, protect American citizens and economic interests, and help the United States leverage Antarctic Treaty provisions to maintain peace in the region amid growing geopolitical interests. 

Antarctic Governance: Like Nowhere Else in the World

Antarctica, which lies south of 60°S, has been governed since 1961 not by countries acting as sovereigns across different territories, but by international cooperation across the entire region through the Antarctic Treaty. The Treaty freezes unrecognized conflicting territorial claims and their resulting maritime claims, prohibits military activity (except for peaceful purposes), and encourages international collaboration to advance scientific research. As the map shows, seven countries claim territory in Antarctica—Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom—and Argentina, Chile, and the UK overlap. The Treaty is widely recognized as the first Cold War arms control and inspection regime, largely due to its two-tiered compliance-monitoring process, which includes unannounced inspections anywhere in the region.

Antarctic Treaty members have negotiated additional binding agreements, including the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty and its Annexes (Protocol), which entered into force in 1998. The Protocol establishes environmental standards, such as limiting waste and pollution and prohibiting non-scientific mining in the region and makes recommendations that are considered at the annual Antarctic Treaty meeting. As of November 1, 2025, there are 29 Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties that make consensus-based decisions on the governance of the region including on issues that originate under the Environmental Protocol. Another 29 countries have ratified the Treaty but cannot participate in its decision-making.

A separate but related agreement is the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CAMLR Convention), which entered into force in 1982. The Convention establishes rules that conserve Antarctic marine ecosystems and use an ecosystem-based management approach that allows fishing so long as it is done in a sustainable manner. The Convention establishes by consensus the rules for catching krill and toothfish, which is likely called Chilean Sea Bass, on your menu, and has established two marine protected areas in the region. Similar to other regional fishing arrangements, there are a variety of at-sea and port tools to verify compliance with its decisions, including vessel licensing and monitoring, the Catch Documentation Scheme for toothfish, and an inspection system. There are 27 members of the Convention that participate in its decision-making process, of which all but Namibia and the European Union are Parties or Consultative Parties to the Antarctic Treaty.

Antarctic Capabilities: Land and Water

There have never been any indigenous people in Antarctica, so the only human presence are government-sponsored stations or maritime commercial activities. As noted earlier, seven countries have territorial claims “frozen” by the Treaty, which serve as incentives and justification for domestic funding to maintain stations in the region.

Overall, twenty-eight countries have established 75 stations to support scientific research, although their mere presence has geopolitical implications, which include tacitly supporting those frozen claims (by the seven claimants) or denying those frozen claims (by all other countries, including the United States, which has denied the possibility of any country claiming sovereignty in Antarctica for over one century). Per the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs (COMNAP), roughly 5,000 staff and scientists could work at these stations during the height of the austral summer, while less than 2,000 remain during the Antarctic winter. To date, the stations are not integrated into commercial operations—meaning there are no hotels for tourists, ports for fishing vessels, or hospitals for medical emergencies—but their facilities and equipment could provide limited assistance in case of emergencies.

The U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP) has the largest presence on the continent, with three stations that house approximately 1,400 people. The United States has the sole station at the South Pole, which is the continent’s single most geopolitically and symbolically important property. It also has the largest station, McMurdo on the Ross Sea, with approximately 1,200 beds, and the 46-person Palmer Station on the Antarctic Peninsula. Per COMNAP, the only other countries that reported more than 200 beds on the continent are Argentina (11 stations, almost 600 beds), Australia (six stations, less than 300 beds), Chile (13 stations, almost 400 beds), China (five stations, 300 beds), and Russia (10 stations, 340 beds).

While the globe enters a new era of international tensions and a shake-up of the international system, international cooperation among national programs in the form of emergency response, logistical support, and scientific collaboration has been the norm throughout the region since the mid-1950s and shows no sign of slackening. France and Italy operate the only jointly managed station, called Concordia, but many stations operate near and collaborate with each other to increase efficiency and safety in the most remote and challenging portion of the globe. A few examples include King George Island (which has stations by Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Poland, Russia, and South Korea), Larsemann Hills (which has stations by Australia, China, India, and Russia), Queen Maud Land (which has stations from Germany, India, Japan, Norway, Russia, and South Africa) and the Ross Sea (which has New Zealand and U.S. stations next to each other, as well as stations from China, Italy, and South Korea around 200 miles away). In this light, the Chinese-Russian plan to collaborate in the particularly challenging West Antarctic region is not unusual and is certainly not prohibited, although it is worth monitoring.

Twenty-four countries notified fellow-Treaty members of the operation of 50 vessels, both traditional and icebreakers, to conduct and support the terrestrial stations. (There is no widely accepted definition of what constitutes an icebreaker.) During the 2023/24 season, the United States operated in five vessels in the Southern Ocean, three of which were icebreakers of varying capacity. Despite the well-known icebreaker deficit, the United States has since declared that it will not operate two of those three icebreakers, the R/V Laurence M. Gould and R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer, which leaves only the USCGC Polar Star, the sole U.S. heavy icebreaker, to fly the U.S. flag in the region. This means the United States will need to rely on foreign-flagged vessels to conduct its operations in the region.

Argentina and Chile would be the natural partners for such U.S. activities. The Chilean Navy operated seven vessels in the Southern Ocean during 2023-24, making it the country with the largest government maritime capacity in the region, including the domestically built icebreaker, Almirante Viel. During the same period, Buenos Aires deployed four vessels to the region. Argentina and Chile regularly conduct joint surprise inspections to verify Treaty compliance and rescue patrols in a vast maritime region.

Their Antarctic “gateway” cities, Ushuaia, Argentina, and Punta Arenas, Chile, compete for investment in Antarctic activities. However, competition does not mean a lack of cooperation, as both navies have for decades collaborated on an annual Joint Antarctic Naval Patrol that monitors maritime traffic and assists in emergencies. Future U.S. icebreakers could benefit from training alongside navies with extensive experience operating in the Southern Ocean.

Other South American countries are also heavily investing in expanding their presence in the Southern Ocean. Brazil annually deploys two icebreakers to Antarctica —the Ary Rongel and the R/V Almirante Maximiano —and is domestically building another vessel to replace the Ary Rongel. Additionally, Peru operates a relatively new icebreaker, the BAP Carrasco. Non-South American countries are active in the Southern Ocean but deploy fewer government vessels there. Notable icebreakers active in the region are operated by Australia (RSV Nuyina), France (FNS L’Astrolabe), Germany (RV Polarstern), Italy (RSV Laura Bassi), Japan (R/V Shirase), South Korea (RV Araon), New Zealand (HMNZS Aotearoa), and the UK (RRS Sir David Attenborough).

As for Washington’s global competitors, China has the Xue Long and Xue Long 2 icebreakers, as well as four krill-fishing ships. Russia has six vessels: two for tourism, one for fishing—the Yantar 31, a vessel NATO countries closely monitor due to suspicions of intelligence operations—and three for government operations, including the Akademik Fedorov and Akademik Tryoshnikov icebreakers. Additionally, Russia’s Akademik Aleksandr Karpinsky, which is under U.S. sanctions and accused of spoofing, regularly goes to the region. As in the United States, these vessels are in high demand by their national Antarctic programs to meet operational needs in the region. 

However, the majority of vessels operating in the Southern Ocean do not support the above terrestrial government operations but are commercial vessels conducting tourism and fishing activities. Sixteen countries reported 110 commercial tourist vessels operating in the region, led by the United States (42) and followed by France (16). Per the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators (IAATO), over 122,000 tourists went to Antarctica during 2023-2024, almost all of whom did so on a cruise ship. Over 54,000 (44%) of the tourists were U.S. citizens, by far the most of any single nationality visiting the region. It is worth recalling that tourism in the Southern Ocean is not without risk, as demonstrated by the deaths of four American citizens in three different events during the 2022/23 season and the sinking without loss of life of the Explorer in 2007. However, despite the known risks, the vessels, even those carrying considerable numbers of American citizens, are not generally reviewed by the U.S. Coast Guard to meet safety and operational standards.

As for fishing, 11 countries reported 45 vessels operating in the Southern Ocean during the 2023/24 season, with South Korea reporting the most (11), followed by Ukraine with 5. European fishing fleets captured by far the largest share of krill and the two subspecies of toothfish, with Norway catching 67% of krill and France catching 40% of the toothfish. It is important to note that commercial mining for hydrocarbons and other minerals is prohibited south of 60°S, a restriction that does not expire or require renewal, so no specialized commercial drilling vessels have been reported in the Southern Ocean.

Beyond commercial and U.S. citizen security interests, U.S.-flagged vessels are important for conducting the unannounced in-person inspections authorized by the Antarctic Treaty, since the vast majority of stations in Antarctica are coastal. The United States has conducted the most inspections—15—but the most recent one was in 2020 and relied heavily on the Polar Star to inspect three stations, including the Chinese Qinling station. Australia (11), the UK (7), and Argentina and Chile (each with 6) are also leaders in conducting these inspections. The Treaty’s inspection provision allows for aerial inspections, but in-person inspections are more effective at identifying actions that could threaten U.S. national interests and deterring countries from taking those steps in the future.

Conclusion: Act Now Before Luck Runs Out

Due to decades of neglect, the United States lacks icebreaking vessels for the two polar regions, a deficit that will take years to reverse. The situation could change, though. President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July that allocates almost $8 billion to build icebreakers “to ensure timely presence of the Coast Guard in the Arctic and Antarctic regions,” and in October, an agreement with Finland’s President to expedite building Arctic icebreakers. Additionally, the U.S. National Science Foundation has initiated the long bureaucratic process to design and build a vessel to replace the Palmer. However, none of these vessels will be available anytime soon, and little progress has been made to build the Polar Security Cutters required to operate in the Southern Ocean. This means the United States will need to rely on good luck and its partners rather than U.S. vessels to advance its maritime interests in the Southern Ocean and the Antarctic mainland.

While Washington and agencies like the U.S. Coast Guard develop plans to (eventually) design, build, and deploy Polar Security Cutters, South American countries are the ideal partners for advancing U.S. interests in Antarctica, including keeping the region peaceful through the Antarctic Treaty system and protecting U.S. citizens. As for operations in Antarctica and surrounding waters, Washington’s top priority will continue to be the annual breakout of McMurdo station on the Ross Sea, which is necessary to support the geopolitically vital U.S. South Pole station and activities in the Ross Sea region. Another priority is scientific operations to advance our polar knowledge and the United States’ ability to influence Antarctic governance. Moreover, the United States must continue to conduct periodic unannounced inspections of coastal stations operated by other countries to verify compliance with the Antarctic Treaty and advance U.S. national interests. The United States should also develop new strategies to increase protection of U.S. citizens in the region, including how best to prevent or manage emergencies in the environmentally challenging Antarctic region.

To achieve the aforementioned goals, icebreakers and polar-capable vessels need to be deployed. To remedy the lack of icebreakers operated by the United States, Washington can increase U.S. collaboration with some South American countries – namely Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru. These partnerships would support the Antarctic Treaty system, support U.S. interests in Antarctica, and improve bilateral relations with critical regional partners that are very active in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. Finally, increased U.S.-South America engagement within the Antarctic Treaty system would further reinforce the peaceful and open nature of the region. Ultimately these partnerships would provide the support needed until the United States eventually addresses its deficit in Polar Security Cutter icebreakers in the Antarctic.

William Muntean is the former Senior Advisor for Antarctica at the U.S. Department of State and regularly lectures and comments on Antarctic geopolitics. He is a non-resident Senior Associate at the Americas Program in the non-partisan Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank and runs the Antarctic Intelligence consulting firm.

Wilder Alejandro Sánchez is an analyst who focuses on international defense, security, and geopolitical issues across the Western Hemisphere, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe. He is the President of Second Floor Strategies, a consulting firm in Washington, DC, and a non-resident Senior Associate at the Americas Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies. Follow him on X/Twitter: @W_Alex_Sanchez.

Featured Image: Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star (WAGB 10) transits through pack ice in the Southern Ocean, Dec. 28, 2022. Polar Star was en route to Antarctica in support of Operation Deep Freeze, a joint service, inter-agency support operation for the National Science Foundation, which manages the United States Antarctic Program. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Aidan Cooney)