| Summary: | Cold War historiography has emphasized the periphery of the Cold War. Focusing on events and histories that were outside of the primary antagonism between the Soviet Union and the United States. This history also centers the agency of peoples within these regions, traditionally relegated to a tangential status, as independently adjusting to the developments of the Cold War. The American Arctic region is no different. The development of Alaska in the postwar period and ensuing military buildup merit study regarding the interactions that such developments had on the Native peoples of the North. Specifically, this thesis will analyze the concerted efforts of Inupiat peoples in response to the buildup of American military installations and the nuclear testing efforts of the American government during the postwar period of 1950s and 1960s to draw a line of intersection through American spatial colonial settler claims and the “justified” military usage of “Uninhabited lands”. This paper will apply a postcolonial and internationalist perspective to archival documents from local and federal sources, reading between the lines of U.S. state department documents to illustrate how the contours of the Cold War affected the state of Alaska and the Native peoples that call it home. Furthermore, this thesis will analyze the human-nature relationship between the differing ideologies of modern states and Indigenous Alaskan peoples. This research will shed light on the U.S state’s relationship to nature in the north and will examine complex intersections of international pressures upon one of the most complex poles of the natural world. San Diego State University
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