Let’s say Argentina invades and captures the Falkland Islands once more. Could the U.K. retake them like it did in 1982?
Today? Probably not. In 5 years when the QE class CVs are in service? Adios Malvinas, cheerio Falklands.
I would say… maybe.
The Royal Navy could pretty easily beat the Armada de la República Argentina. The RN has more ships: 19 Destroyers and Frigates vs 4; 7 submarines vs 3; and a small carrier (although all it carries anymore are helos) vs none. The Argentinians simply have no way of beating the RN at sea.
However Argentina’s big advantage would be in air power. An old carrier with helicopters simply can’t compete with actual planes. And the RN would have to sail into range to get to the Falklands. If the RN could find some way to neutralize their Air Force, like say with cruse missile strikes from the SSNs, or even if they trust the new Daring destroyers to actually defend against a good number (20+) planes it may not matter.
Finally the RN can lift and supply maybe up to about 4000 soldiers with vehicles etc. At least I don’t think they can currently deploy all of the 6000 odd Royal Marine force in a single mission. So it is hard to imagine that Argentina wouldn’t take that into account and simply over defend the islands. 3-4 of their 10 brigades would probably simply be to much for the British to handle.
Maybe the British could overcome the innate disadvantages. But I wouldn’t want to be in charge of planning the mission without a carrier with planes and more amphibious assault capability.
That’s the wrong question. The right question would be, “What would happen if Argentina invaded the Falkland islands again”.
The answer being that an attempt by Argentina to invade the Falklands today would fail. The Falklands are substantially more heavily defended than they were in 82. Four Typhoons are based on the Falklands, and more could be flown down there in hours should the need arise. There’s also nuclear submarines down there too.
The UK military has substantially improved its equipment since 1982. The Argentine military has not, and is mostly still using the same equipment it was 30 years ago.
Another consideration is that the UK also has forces committed to other theaters overseas. I remember a news story a few months back about how the Royal Navy didn’t have the hulls available to maintain a patrol in the English Channel anymore (though that’s more of a symbolic thing than a necessary thing nowadays, what with the Brits and the French being far friendlier than they historically have in the past).
That said, when considering a war with Britain, you gotta factor in the Americans, as the two nations traditionally have each others’ backs. IIRC, during the Falklands War, the US military covered many of the UK’s military commitments in Europe (such as NATO tanker support) to free up British forces to act directly in the conflict. Presumably that would still be the case nowadays, even before you consider ways that Britain’s allies could apply non-military pressure (political, economic, etc.) on an aggressor nation.
It depends whether the question is “could” or “would”.
Taking it to extremes the UK is a nuclear power - theoretically we could sail one of our Trident submarines into the mid-Atlantic and point an SLBM at Buenos Aires. If the threat wasn’t enough, the minute the first nuke drops the matter would be resolved (in terms of ownership of the Falklands).
Now clearly realpolitik dictates that this would never happen, but the GQ answer is that yes the UK could retake the Falklands if they really, really wanted to.
It will be at least a decade before they have any operational capability, and it’s looking increasingly likely that only one will be commissioned into service.
Yes, that’s the real question. As you say, there is now a proper garrison in the islands.
I wish I could remember where but last week I read an interview with Max Hastings. He was a correspondent in the Falklands war. One thing he stressed was how incredibly poor the quality of Argentine soldiers. The British troops were far better soldiers. I imagine that is still the same today. Getting there might be a problem but once they did the results would be about the same.
Of course this depends on whether the British PM has the backbone that Thatcher had.
A few items I recall reading from the last war -
During the initial invasion, one of the Argentine landing craft sank. Over the next week or so the Argentine soldiers kept finding dead bodies washing ashore. One Falklander returning to his house after the war said it had shit everywhere inside… As one correspondent pointed out, this was not the Argentine soldeirs being childishly destructive, they were trapped in bad weather with poor supplies and had such bad diarrhea they often could not make it to the toilet. The navy top brass apparently got into a screaming match with the rest of the junta, said “You can’t tell us what to do” and decided to send out the Belgrano to take on the British fleet. One or two smart torpedoes from 20 miles away, and hundreds of sailors died.
Has the armed forces of Argentina improved much in the last 30 years? Considering their financial problems, I doubt new toys for the army or air force are high on the list. Meanwhile, Britain has certainly given serious thought to defences.
Slight hijack, but do we (i.e. the UK) have completely independent nuclear weapons? I thought I heard once that our nukes need the go-ahead of the USA before the guidance systems or warheads will actually work (as we bought them from the Americans).
Umm… how fast do you think the Typhoons are, and what do you think is their range? And how much ordnance do you think is stored down there?
But you ask a good question. Because thee now has no mobile air power, we’d have to destroy Argentina’s air force. To do that we’d have to nuke their airfields.
It would get interesting if Argentina were to try to set up an airbase on West Falkland.
The islands couldn’t be invaded again in the first place so the point is moot. The four Typhoons, garrison, Type 45 and nuclear submarine armed with cruise missiles, etc. are enough to defend it amply.
I hope you’re right; I fear otherwise.
He’s right. The Argentinians have nothing that could displace an entrenched garrison and four Typhoons. Not to mention naval assets like the non-existent nuclear sub.
It’s not Afghani tribes with AK-47s defending it. It would be difficult for anyone to invade, let alone the Argentinian military which is 30-years out-of-date.
If you think that the UK can’t use the weapons independently, you’re pretty naive (no offense meant). Whatever the official line is, the UK has lots of secrets. And one of those secrets is certain to be (other than the “we have much more capability than we declare” and “we have shit loads of emplaced people in every government, including the US”) that we can use them whenever we damn well please. It’s almost ludicrous to think otherwise. The alternative would be the most incompetent military in hostory.
We spend a lot of money on stuff we don’t talk about. We’re not as transparent with our budgets as the US is. They have a lot of black stuff, and we have a lot, too. We have the capability to use them, never fear.
Don’t believe everything you hear. The real stuff, we never know about. Just estimate a lot more capability than declared at all times.
He might be thinking of how the Royal Canadian Air Force handled nuclear weapons. Canada had no (may still have no, I don’t know if they ever changed the policy) nuclear weapons, but had bought into the US strategy of interceptor jets armed with air-to-air nuclear missiles (yes, air-to-air nuclear missiles, for when you absolutely want to be sure you swat that fly…)
The solution was that the Canadian bases that staged the RCAF interceptors had USAF detachments which would keep the nuclear missiles secured. Upon receiving appropriate orders from the US government, the American personnel would release the nuclear missiles to the Canadian military (presumably only under circumstances where not doing so meant there would be few Canadian civilians left to complain about the breach in non-nuclear policy).
But yeah, I’d never heard anything of the sort about the Brits.
Oh, it’s a common urban myth over here. Heard it a million times.
Y’know, from all those people who know about the UK’a nuclear protocols and post about them on messageboards. Because that’s what people who know about it do.
The very idea that the UK government would adopt a nuclear protocol that required foreign authorisation is silly as houses. But the myth perpetuates.
The best rule of thumb: if someone on the Internet tells you how a nation’s nuclear protocols work, they’re either making it up or looking at some serious jail time.
Yes, that means I don’t know either. I’m just operating on common sense here. It would be a ludicrous scenario.
Not only does the UK have independent control of it’s weapon’s but it’s Trident commanders have independent ability to fire weapons if they lose communication from the government.
Making that public knowledge is one of the requirements for MAD right? You could nuke the entire UK mainland, but there 4 UK nuclear subs with Tridents somewhere in the world that can fire back independently. If that ability didn’t exist, then your mutual assured destruction falls apart.
As for the idea that the US sells or sold Nuclear weapons to the Uk, that’s kind of backwards of what happened. The UK helped the Manhattan project and then asked for access to Nuclear weapons after the war, the US refused so the UK developed their own weapons program.
Ok, firstly I don’t know what people are thinking when they say that the British forces on Falklands are enough to stop an Argentine attack,they clearly are not. A reinforced rifle company and a single flight operating 10,000 miles from home are not going to hold off several armoured and mechanised brigades. No one there expects the forces to be anything more than a tripwire in case of invasion and the UK lacks in 2012, quite a lot of capability it had in 1982, Fleet Carriers for instance, which would make round 2 a lot more interesting. The purpose of British forces there are to make a political statement about intent.
The most important thing on the island is probably a higher level of detection for an incoming attack. The last time they got to just land with no serious opposition at all and they thought they had a fait accompli.
Now they know theres a fair chance of having to lose significant forces to even manage the landing, one submarine could make those brigades a very expensive loss - they’re basically useless until they’re actually on the island.
Edit: And there was a scandal not so long ago about UK nuclear weapons basically being secured by a padlock.
Otara