The Falkland Islands Conflict No one really knows who discovered the Falkland Islands. Nearly every British historian will insist that the English explorer John Davis discovered the islands in 1592 (1) while Argentineans typically credit Vespucci, Magellan, or Se bald de We ert. (2) The events of January 2, 1883 are not in dispute, however. On this date, James Onslow, captain of the HMS Clio, dropped anchor just off the Falklands. The next day he went ashore and raised the British flag. (3) This action infuriated the Argentines, who had taken control of the Falklands upon receiving independence from Spain in 1816.
With his imperialistic seizure of the islands, Onslow began a sequence of events that would end nearly 150 years later in war. Shortly after the invasion, the Argentine government set out four arguments in favour of their ownership of the Falklands: 1. Argentina ruled all land in the region formerly held by Spain. 2. Spain had purchased the islands from France. 3.
Britain had abandoned its claim to the Falklands in a “secret” 1771 agreement. 4. Britain had abandoned its settlement in West Falkland in 1774. (4) No matter how well formed these arguments may have been, they fell on deaf ears in Britain.
Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Secretary, simply asserted that the Falklands had been British since the initial claim of sovereignty in 1765. (5) Although Argentina remained in a state of official protest, few things changed over the next 132 years. The issue was finally brought to the forefront in 1965 when the United Nations passed Resolution 2065, which called upon Britain and Argentina to come to an agreement on the issue with reasonable speed. (6) With this resolution began what came to be called the “Seventeen Year War” between the two nations. In March 1967 Britain agreed that it might be possible to cede sovereignty of the Falklands to Argentina, as long as the islanders agreed. (7) While the Argentines may have viewed this as a major concession, Britain had really given up very little.
The Falkland islanders were quite resolute in their desire to remain subjects of the Queen. They managed to force the creation of a Falklands Islands lobby whose purpose it was to frustrate any plans to hand over the territory to Argentina. (8) The lobby combined with the islanders’ continuous protests to parliament was enough to stall the negotiations indefinitely. The events of the following decade are notable only because almost no headway was made on the issue.
While joint memos of understanding were forthcoming from the two countries, they did little more than voice each side’s desire to bring the issue to a resolution. Events took on a more urgent tone as the years wore on, however. This was mainly due to the Argentineans, as Great Britain almost certainly desired a continuation of the status quo. Argentina was being relegated to a position of third-rate influence in the world.
The country was still recovering from “la guerra su cia” (the dirty war) waged by military dictator Jorge Videla from 1976 to 1978. During these two years, nearly 18, 000 Argentineans vanished, including dozens of journalists, scientists, and religious figures. (9) Things had changed dramatically, however, by the end of 1980. Leopoldo Galtieri had ascended to the presidency of Argentina. As commander-in-chief of the army and head of the three-man military junta which ran the country, Galtieri largely ended the dirty war and worked very hard to build a closer relationship with the United States. As the government was positioning Argentina as a new regional power, Galtieri began to concern himself with the state of the Falklands negotiations.
He convinced himself that regaining the Falklands was essential to maintaining national pride. By December 1981, Galtieri, after speaking with Admiral Jorge Anaya, head of the Argentine navy, resolved that the Falklands would be in Argentine hands within a year. (10) The Course of the Falklands War The Falkland Islands lie 8, 000 miles Southwest of Britain, a distance that takes at least 21 days to traverse by ship. During the negotiations Britain, for the most part, had not taken any overt military action to fortify the islands. (11) Therefore, there was only a small garrison of troops in the Falklands on April 2, 1982.
At 4: 30 am 150 Argentine marine commandos landed at Mullet t Creek, three miles south of Stanley, the island’s capital. (12) While a fierce guerrilla battle broke out between the Argentines and the British Marines at the Government House, the British soldiers never really had a sporting chance. At 6: 00 that evening, Governor Rex Hunt, having surrendered to Argentine General Manuel Osvaldo Jorge Garcia, left the Falklands. (13) With the governor’s departure, the Falkland Islands fell into Argentine hands. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher ensured that the English response to the invasion was swift and decisive. The House of Commons met in emergency session on April 3 and was told that a task force had already been dispatched to the South Atlantic.
(14) The diplomatic response was equally swift. United Nations Security Council Resolution 502 was introduced on the very day of the invasion. Resolution 502 called for the immediate cessation of hostilities and the withdrawal of all Argentine forces from the islands. The resolution passed by one vote and became, according to one source, “a formidable part of her [Britain’s] diplomatic armour y.” (15) Because of the distance between Britain and the Falkland Islands, there was necessarily a lull in the fighting while Britain manoeuvred her troops into a position to re-take the islands. United States Secretary of State Alexander Haig used this period to seek a peaceful solution to the situation.
Beginning on April 8, Haig flew back and forth between Buenos Aires and London trying to mediate a truce. Less than four weeks later, on April 30, Haig gave up and returned to Washington. The United States then formally abandoned its neutrality on the Falklands matter and sided with Britain. (16) The United States likely viewed neutrality as a diplomatic necessity during the earlier stages of the conflict; after all, Argentina had previously been emerging as one of the United States’s taunchest allies in South America.
By May 1, Britain finally found itself in a position to begin an operation against Argentine troops on the Falkland Islands. While the main task force had still not fully assembled itself, the materials necessary to launch a limited bomber strike were available at the British base on Ascension. The obsolete Vulcan bomber chosen for the mission required no fewer than seventeen refueling stops during the fifteen-hour flight to the Falklands. Once it had arrived, the crew dropped 21, 000 pounds of explosives from an altitude of 10, 000 feet on the Stanley airfield. One of the bombs scored a direct hit on the runway, while the others fell off target. Later that morning, twelve V/STOL (very short take-off and landing) Sea Harriers carried out a series of raids.
The day was capped when the first ground troops landed on both the east and west islands that make up the main body of the Falklands. (17) Historians generally classify the war as a British rout. The Argentineans were up against superior technology, highly trained soldiers, and (never to be underestimated) the indomitable will of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Despite their overall disadvantages, however, the Argentines did manage to extract some expensive losses from the British.
Throughout the war, both sides used traditional, predictable military tactics. For the most part British and Argentine troops played by the rules of war. Patrick Bishop has classified the campaign as having “many of the characteristics of a nineteenth-century military encounter.” (18) Despite all of the high-tech weaponry available to both sides, bayonets were bloodied in several battles. Nevertheless, advanced technology did have a definite impact upon the direction of the war, especially during sea-based encounters. It is interesting that neither side was able to achieve air supremacy during the Falklands War. The main aircraft used by Argentine air forces was the French-built Mirage fighter.
After the Stanley airfield was disabled, the Mirages could only operate from mainland airbases several hundred miles from the Falklands. (19) This distance limited the “loiter time” available to the Argentine fighters. British attempts at air supremacy were limited not by distance but instead by the limited number of aircraft that could operate from the short-deck carriers HMS Hermes and Invincible, the only two carriers in the British inventory at the time. Interestingly, the HMS Invincible had actually been sold to Australia before the beginning of the conflict and was scheduled to be delivered during the summer of 1982. Had the British only had one small carrier at their disposal, any plans to recover the Falklands would have likely been dismissed as unworkable. (20) Without a doubt, the most effective weapons of the war were the French-manufactured Exocet anti-ship missiles in the Argentinean inventory.
One of these missiles was responsible for the sinking of the HMS Sheffield, a British destroyer dispatched to the Falklands as a member of the “forward air defence picket.” (21) The loss of the Sheffield was one of the most painful blows received by the British Navy during the course of the war and greatly affected public sentiment in England. (22) The Exocet was also instrumental in a number of other attacks against the British fleet, including one incident in which 50 Welsh guardsmen were killed. (23) Despite the havoc wreaked by the Exocet, Britain was able to land sufficient quantities of troops onto the islands to reach their objectives. The first large landing of the war took place at San Carlos, located off of the Falkland Sound in the Northeast portion of East Falkland on May 21. One week later, the troops were involved in the bloodiest land conflict of the war: the Battle of Goose Green, in which 250 Argentines and 18 British soldiers, including a Lieutenant Colonel, were killed. (24) From this point, British troops methodically made their way across East Falkland towards the capital at Stanley.
The battle for Stanley began on June 11 and ended three days later with the formal surrender of Argentina. The battles of the Falklands War are glossed over here because there is really very little to discuss. Neither the British nor the Argentineans showed any flashes of true tactical brilliance during course of the conflict. At one point, an officer of the Welsh Guards was asked what the strategy for an upcoming attack was.
He responded, “We ” ll sneak up on them, open fire and give them cold steel up their [expletive deleted].” (25) And such was the strategy behind many of the British attacks carried out in the Falklands. Theoretical Interpretations of the Causes of the War What was it that caused Leopoldo Galtieri to forsake his country’s hard-fought gains by launching a foolhardy invasion of a foreign territory as insignificant as the Falkland Islands? Historians will no doubt struggle with this question for years to come. To come closer to an answer to this question, one must understand Galtieri himself. The Galtieri junta was significantly different from the two previous military juntas in several important aspects.
General Galtieri, having received training in the United States, was very more than willing to coddle American interests. Human rights violations slowed during the Galtieri regime as well. (26) Galtieri showed himself on several occasions to be a very emotional man. His voice cracked conspicuously on the night of April 2 when he announced to a throng of Buenos Airiness thatthe Falklands had been retaken. He was noticeably intoxicated with his celebrity status during his several previous visits to the United States, soaking up praise from American politicians grateful to have someone to manipulate in power. (27) There has lately been some speculation that Admiral Jorge Anaya bears as much responsibility as does Galtieri for the invasion.
In putting together a coalition to support his ascension to the presidency, General Galtieri had to draw upon the support of Anaya, who was his friend. Sensing an opportunity to bring glory upon his Navy, Admiral Anaya may very well have forced Galtieri to agree to an acquisition timetable in exchange for his support. (28) These theory gains further support from the events of a meeting that took place in the late evening hours of April 30, 1982. President Reagan had just announced the United State’s support of Britain in the Falklands matter. This was a turn of events not anticipated by the Argentines.
The junta, headed by the president, met late into the night. Galtieri tried to convince Anaya and General Basilic Lam i (head of the Argentine air force and the third member of the junta) that a withdrawal from the Falklands was the only prudent course of action. Nevertheless, Anaya, convinced that withdrawing from the Falklands would bring down the junta, could not be dissuaded. (29) It is important that this line of reasoning not be taken to far. General Leopoldo Galtieri was the President of Argentina and the ruling member of the junta. Anaya was powerful, but nothing could happen without Galtieri’s approval.
While Galtieri did, no doubt, have misgivings as the situation escalated, he cannot escape blame for providing his initial approval of the invasion. Yet the root question still remains unanswered. What was the reasoning behind the decision to retake the islands? Some guidance may be found in the theory espoused by several affiliates of the Institute of Human Relations at Yale University. According to their “frustration and aggression” model, those who instigate war are doing do so in response to setbacks, aggravation, and defeat. (30) Few countries have been through as much as Argentina has. The nation was made an international pariah by the Humphrey-Kennedy sanctions enacted by President Jimmy Carter in reaction to the gross human rights violations of the dirty war.
From the terror of the later Peron years to Jorge Videla’s death squads, it is likely that few Argentines had much hope for their country at all. Yet it is hard to ignore the fact that Argentina was on an upswing! The economy was improving, the sanctions had been lifted at the beginning of the Reagan administration, and Argentina was preparing to enter an era of unparalleled co-operation with the United States. According to the frustration and aggression model, “aggressive behaviour always presupposes the existence of frustration.” (31) One would expect Argentina to strike against the Falklands at the height of its frustration, rather than long after the peak, as was the case. Thus, the frustration and aggression model provides only limited insight into the junta’s actions. What did come to play a large role in Argentina’s decision to attack the Falklands was a classic series of misjudgments on the part of the junta. Ralph K.
White performed an extensive analysis of the reasoning behind Austria’s decision to instigate World War I. In doing so, he identified six forms of misperception that led to the war. (32) Three of these can also be traced to Galtieri and his junta. White suggests that a virile self-image (or the fear of humiliation) can lead a country to attack another. (33) While the fate of the Falkland Islands may have seemed trivial to the rest of the world, the issue was a clear matter of national pride to Argentina.
Secondly, according to White, aggressor nations nearly always view themselves to be clearly in the moral right. (34) This mind set of morality had very obviously set in, at least among the junta. The night before the invasion began, President Reagan called General Galtieri to plead with him not to go ahead with the attack. Galtieri then launched into a detailed, self-righteous 50-minute explanation of why Argentina had a legitimate claim to the Falklands. (35) Finally, White asserts that nations enter into most conflicts blinded by military overconfidence. (36) This was certainly the case with Argentina.
While the junta may not have deluded themselves into thinking that they could beat England in a full-scale war (Great Britain is, after all, a nuclear state) they were certain that the U. S. would either remain neutral or support Argentina openly, thus significantly weakening the British hand. Galtieri also underestimated the amount of resources that Britain would place behind the operation. How Could the Falklands Conflict Have Been Prevented? Now that some basic causes have been identified, the question of avoidance arises.
Did 1, 000 soldiers die in vain? It is unlikely that any country could have prevented the “frustration” period that Argentina experienced during the 1970’s. Although the United States might have intervened to protect human rights, such action would have undoubtedly required U. S. troops, and armed action on behalf of small, third-world nations was not a popular course of action in a nation still recovering from the horrors of Vietnam. Thus, if the theory of frustration and aggression holds true, a conflict in the Falklands might have been inevitable.
(37) However, since it was previously proven that the theory of frustration and aggression doesn’t completely apply to the Falklands situation, it is only reasonable to believe that the war might have been averted. Presuming that the British would have fought for the islands under any circumstance, avoiding armed conflict would have meant clearing up the misconceptions held by the junta. While she certainly did not cause the war, Britain must shoulder some of the blame for Argentina’s gross misreading of the Falklands situation. During the seventeen years between 1965 and 1982, Britain’s actions quite often contradicted her words. A good example of this behaviour lies in the proposed decommissioning of the HMS Endurance. The Endurance was the Royal Navy’s only permanent presence within the South Atlantic.
In 1981, Prime Minister Thatcher made the decision that the Endurance would be scrapped. The Argentineans thought that this massive reduction in South Atlantic naval strength meant that Britain was losing interest in the region. (38) Countless actions such as these cost the British a great deal of credibility at the negotiating table. In their book ‘Getting to Yes’, Roger Fisher and William Ury make a number of observations that are highly relevant to diplomats. Chief among these is the concept that “without communication there is no negotiation.” (39) While the British certainly thought that they were negotiating in good faith, the Argentineans were becoming frustrated because of the mixed messages they were receiving. Had the British diplomats simply ensured that the actions of their government matched what they were saying around the negotiating table, Galtieri’s misconceptions would have been cleared up and the entire war could have been averted.
It is important to note that, in this case, the Falklands problem would not have been solved, but Argentina would have understood the consequences of invading the islands. Could the Falklands War been Ended Earlier than It Was? To Margaret Thatcher, the Argentinean invasion of the Falklands was absolutely beyond forgiveness. She resolved immediately that there would be no negotiation with the Argentineans over anything short of an unconditional surrender. Thatcher’s stubbornness is the core reason why Alexander Haig’s peace shuttle was such a miserable failure. Even a plea from her personal friend Ronald Reagan did not dissuade Thatcher from her resolve to bring the Argentineans to their knees. (40) The influence of Margaret Thatcher alone ensured that the war would continue until the Argentina surrendered.
After reviewing the observations made by Ms. Thatcher regarding the situation, one is left with the impression that she would have fought the Argentineans with her own bare hands if it were necessary to avert defeat. Conclusion Argentina only enjoyed possession of the Falkland Islands for ten weeks before the Union Jack once again flew over Stanley. The effect of the loss upon Argentine morale was devastating.
While the number of casualties had not been particularly high, (Argentina only lost about 700 soldiers in the war) (41) Argentinean armed forces had been humiliated at every turn. Within a month of the campaign’s end, every member of the junta, including Galtieri himself, had resigned. Argentina once again found itself facing more years of uncertainty. (42) There are dozens of lessons that can be learned from this little war of Argentine imperialism. Military strategists are still developing new ways to combat the ever-potent Exocet missile and most defence ministers are now re-examining the value of conventional carriers. (43) The most important lesson was taught on the diplomatic front, however.
The conflict in the Falklands should be an eternal reminder to every negotiator of what can happen when one party misreads the message sent by another. The Falkland War was caused by frustration and misconceptions. The misconceptions were caused by the lack of a clear message from Britain. It is for this reason that history will ultimately judge the war in the Falklands to have been singularly unnecessary.
Endnotes 1. Paul Eddy, Magnus Linklater, and Peter Gillman, The Falklands War (London: Andr’e Deutsch Limited, 1982), 33. 2. Max Hastings and Simon Jennings, The Battle for the Falklands (New York: W. W.
Norton, 1983), 1. 3. Eddy, Linklater & Gillman, 39. 4. Eddy, Linklater & Gillman, 39. 5.
Hastings and Jenkins, 6. 6. Eddy, Linklater & Gillman, 41. 7.
Lawrence Freedman, Britain and the Falklands War, (London: Basil Blackwell, Ltd. , 1988), 23. 8. Wayne S.
Smith, ed. , Toward Resolution? The Falklands/Malvinas Dispute, (London: Lynne Re inner Publishers, 1991), 15. 9. Eddy, Linklater & Gillman, 58. 10. Eddy, Linklater & Gillman, 62.
11. Freedman, 31. 12. Hastings and Jenkins, 73. 13. Eddy, Linklater & Gillman, 93.
14. Hastings and Jenkins, 78. 15. Eddy, Linklater & Gillman, 113. 16.
Virginia Gamba, The Falklands/Malvinas War (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1987), 150-151. 17. Eddy, Linklater & Gillman, 154. 18. Patrick Bishop and John Witherow, The Winter War (London: Quartet Books, 1982), 17.
19. Eddy, Linklater & Gillman, 155. 20. Bruce Watson and Peter Dunn, eds. , Military Lessons of the Falkland Islands War: Views from the United States (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1984), 16. 21.
Eddy, Linklater & Gillman, 163. 22. Eddy, Linklater & Gillman, 168. 23.
David Brown, The Royal Navy and the Falklands War (London: Leo Cooper, 1987), 302. 24. Eddy, Linklater & Gillman, 220. 25.
Bishop and Witherow, 18. 26. Gamba, 77. 27.
Eddy, Linklater & Gillman, 60. 28. Hastings and Jenkins, 46. 29. Eddy, Linklater & Gillman, 149. 30.
John Dollard, et al. , Frustration and Aggression (New Haven, CT: Yale UP), 1. 31. Dollard, 1. 32. Ralph White, Nobody Wanted War (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970), 10.
33. White, 10. 34. White, 12. 35. Eddy, Linklater & Gillman, 80.
36. White, 16. 37. The theory states that “aggression is always a consequence of frustration.” (Dollard, 1).
38. Eddy, Linklater & Gillman, 55. 39. Roger Fisher and William Ury, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (Boston: Houghton Mifflin), 33. 40. Eddy, Linklater & Gillman, 243.
41. Hastings and Jenkins, 316. 42. Hastings and Jenkins, 325.
43. Watson and Dunn, eds. , 19.