The Falklands: Is Argentina About to Have Another Go?

David Craig
David Craig is the author of There is No Climate Crisis, available (for now) as an e-book or paperback from Amazon.

Readers will be aware of the shenanigans after the World Cup football match when England lost to Argentina. A group of Argentine footballers held up a banner claiming the Malvinas are Argentinian. It would seem that our Argentine friends are still rather keen to snaffle the Falkland Islands from us. They tried this in 1982 and were pushed out. But much has changed since then and it seems that politically, diplomatically and, above all, militarily those changes have been in the Argentinians’ favour.

Politically

With a globalist, rather than nationalist, Labour Party in government, we can’t be sure our government would be so keen to defend British interests. Today’s Labour Party has consistently shown embarrassment over British history and views the British Empire and any British possessions as the epitome of evil. We saw this in Keir Starmer’s Chagos giveaway, a policy which, it seems, Mr Burnham’s government is keen to push forward. We should therefore not be surprised if this government is willing to surrender the Falklands, possibly by claiming they are only following ‘international law’.

And anyway, why would Britain want to keep the Falklands? Of course, there are possibly vast reserves of oil and gas in the waters around the islands. But due to our rulers making the achievement of Net Zero a legally binding policy, we wouldn’t want any of the Falklands’ oil and gas. So we might as well let Argentina have it all.

Diplomatically

When Thatcher was prime minister we had a strong relationship with the USA. But Starmer’s Labour seem to have done everything possible to annoy the economically successful Americans in order to have an excuse to drag us back into the failing, economically sclerotic EU. Our government’s latest attempts to irritate the Americans include Labour trying to weaponise Ofcom, using online safety legislation, to impose massive fines on US tech companies, and our government’s attempts to crush free speech by demanding that US tech companies use their algorithms to prioritise material from ‘trusted’ (Labour-supporting) news sources like the BBC and Channel 4 News and Sky News while deprioritising any material from real news sources that might be critical of our increasingly despotic Labour regime.

Moreover, Ed Miliband – our former energy secretary, now our foreign secretary – has previously clashed with Mr Trump over Net Zero and his attitudes to democracy, and in 2016 he described the president as “a racist, misogynistic, self-confessed groper”. Not the best way to make friends with the Americans who elected President Trump. So, in the event that Britain did try to assert sovereignty over the Falklands, we’d probably find that the USA sided with Argentina against us. When the Argentine players held up their banner, breaking FIFA rules on political demonstrations, the US administration defended their actions on the basis of free speech. As for Labour’s beloved EU, it seems keen to seize on any opportunity to punish and humiliate Britain for the Brexit vote. Moreover, being woke and anti-colonialist – and, of course, containing socialist, Argentina-friendly Spain – the EU would probably also support Argentina’s claim to the Falklands.

Militarily

It is above all militarily that Argentina seems to be in the ascendant over Britain. In 1982, the year of the last Argentine invasion, Argentina had about 100 jet fighters and 10 bombers. Now the Argentinians only have about six secondhand F-16s bought from Denmark, though another 12 are on order. Moreover, in 1982 Argentina had 10 Super Étendards made by French firm Dassault. The Argentines still have these, but they are all grounded due to a lack of spare parts – ironically supplied by Britain. The Argentinians also had an old second world war aircraft carrier, six destroyers and two submarines. In addition, they had the battleship Belgrano, which the British transformed into a submarine with the loss of 323 Argentine lives. Now the Argentinians don’t have any carriers or submarines, and only have three destroyers and six corvettes.

So, just like the British military, the current Argentine military is a significantly shrivelled version of what it used to be. But while Britain continues to reduce its armed forces as the country becomes an impoverished, benefits-and-borrowing-dependent, bankrupt international laughing stock, the Argentinians are increasing their military forces.

Argentina is increasing its number of F-16s from six to 18. It is also buying two new refuelling aircraft, three submarines and three frigates.

It is perhaps the purchase of the two refuelling planes that gives the best indication of Argentina’s intentions. The Falklands are about 400 miles from the main Argentine military bases. Typically, an F-16’s operating range is 300 to 550 nautical miles (550 to 1,020 km) – the distance the jet can fly into a battle, complete its mission and return safely on one tank of fuel. It doesn’t take a military genius to guess why Argentina is buying two new refuelling planes. With them, Argentina’s F-16s will be able to spend much longer patrolling over the Falklands.

We can therefore expect Argentina’s 18 F-16s to overwhelm the four Typhoon jets the British have at their Falklands Mount Pleasant airbase, and the new Argentine frigates and submarines to quickly despatch the two small patrol vessels the British have supposedly ‘guarding’ the islands.

As for sending a taskforce to expel the Argentinians as Britain did in 1982, this would no longer be possible. Our two aircraft carriers are virtually useless due to persistent mechanical problems, there are reliability issues with the planes aboard them and all our submarines and most of our destroyers are in dock being repaired – again and again. Readers will no doubt remember the difficulties Britain had trying to send just one destroyer, HMS Dragon, to protect our military base on Cyprus when it was attacked. Given the lamentable state of our navy, one might be tempted to wonder what Britain’s 29 admirals – admirals, vice-admirals and rear-admirals – actually do all day. Britain would now be unable to assemble a taskforce to send to the Falklands and, without proper naval support, in the unlikely event that our two aircraft carriers could actually reach the islands, they would be sitting ducks for some Argentine anti-ship missile practice.

This is briefly why I believe that, once Argentina has its extra F-16s, its two refuelling aircraft and its new submarines and frigates, it will take the Falklands and be able to keep them. I wonder if the hundreds of bureaucrats at the ludicrously misnamed Ministry of Defence and our numerous military top brass have done similar research and have a plan to stop the loss of the Falklands?