science 2008-2009: 3: post-Cold War tensions?

‘The Arctic is Russian’, explained Artur Chilingarov, leader of an expedition that planted a Russian flag on the sea floor at the North Pole in August 2007, ‘We must prove the North Pole is an extension of the Russian coastal shelf’. As Daniel Cressey explains, under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, countries could lay claim to areas beyond the standard 200 nautical mile limit, so long as there was a “natural prolongation” of its continental shelf. The Russians argued that the Lomonosov shelf, which stretches undersea across the polar region connected to the motherland. Canada and Denmark (Greenland) disputed the claim. The dispute would revolve wround interpretations of geophysical and geological data, snatched during explorations in the brief Arctic summer. At stake was unknown oil, gas and mineral wealth.

While reminiscent of Antarctic politics, in which scientific activity was a marker for future possible claims (discussed in my chapter of Cold War sciences) and despite the Russian presence, this episode is not best understood as a re-emergence of older Cold War tensions. Rather it is a vigorous expression of nationalistic interests. There are comparable clashes between Western nations – between France, Spain, Britain and Ireland over the Bay of Biscay for example.

Nevertheless, the two decades since the end of the Cold War have seen some of the organisations most associated, even defined, by the conflict, struggle for new rationales and identities. DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, the renamed ARPA in 1972) provides a good example.

Recall that ARPA was designed as a lean, fast-moving agency to fund defence research projects to enable the United States to overtake the Soviet Union following Sputnik. Its successes included the ARPANET, Project Vela (detecting nuclear detonations), the anti-ballistic missile system Defender, and stealth aircraft (first flying in 1977).

On the one hand DARPA in the post-Cold War years attracted criticism. Sharon Weinberger notes insider views that DARPA conferences were now “light in substance” and too close to Hollywood gimmickry. Furthermore, in the conflict in Iraq when innovative military solutions were needed, the Pentagon turned to agencies such as the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, and not DARPA.

On the other hand, the old DARPA was regarded as a model of an innovative organisation, and a model to copy. Examples include IARPA (for Intelligence), HSARPA (for Homeland Security), and ARPA-E (for energy, with a particular emphasis on energy security and latterly climate change).