Frontier engineering: from the globe to the body in the Cold War Arctic

Abstract

The dual themes of sovereignty and wilderness have come to define, or at least dominate, historical discussions of the North American Arctic. This paper argues that neither adequately captures the role of the Arctic during the early Cold War, a period of unprecedented interest in northern landscapes. Political and environmental approaches, with their national undertones, were incorporated into a dominant narrative whose implications were far less abstract: the Arctic became a frontier for military science, both imaginatively and materially. Civilian institutions with military affiliations emerged to advocate for additional Arctic research in the natural and social sciences, whereas Canadian and American military agencies established laboratories and training centres, constructed complex defence networks and staged numerous military exercises across Arctic spaces, operations which tested the performance of both humans and machines. These projects actively engineered Arctic terrain in the name of scholarly advancement and military necessity. If the Cold War Arctic is to be understood geographically, then the national scale must be placed next to the broader views of geopolitics and scientific inquiry but also next to the finer perspectives of military bodies moving across ‘hostile’ terrain.

The IGY and the ice sheet: surveying Antarctica

“…70 The Army Signals Corps was working on the use of altimeters over ice, while the Quartermaster Corps was using Antarctica to test equipment and clothing for use in the 67 Arctic -one of the frontlines in the Cold War. 71 In turn, the US Navy and TRAG were present in a supporting role; responsible for moving scientists and equipment both to and across the continent; although the Navy also carried out their own research into oceanography from their icebreakers. 72 Indeed, the US Navy's involvement in Antarctic affairs went back some years, to the work of Admiral Richard Byrd, via the United States Navy Antarctic Development Program, 1946-47, or Operation Highjump.…”

Subversive Patterning: The Surficial Qualities of Camouflage

“…In bringing military artistic and scientific knowledges into close correspondence, the camoufleurs showed that camouflage brings the background to the fore as a dynamic and decisive element to survival, to life. Therefore, where the history of the military-industrial-complex has been well examined (Barnes, 2006;Farish, 2006;Pickering, 1995), this paper considers the military-scientific-artistic-complex that the military also demanded in WWII. Camouflage necessitates a deep understanding of our environment, our placing in world, and on the world.…”

Immersive terrain: the US Navy, Sealab and Cold War undersea geopolitics

“…As Farish ( ) highlights in his work on the Arctic, the geopolitical rivalry and instability of the Cold War provided a backdrop against which militaries would be pitted against the earth's most hostile environments. Indeed, the US military were enthusiastically studying and engaging with extreme environments and terrains after the onset of the Cold War and increasingly configuring the world ‘as a patchwork of hostile environments’ to be mastered (Farish , 193).…”