# Falklands: What did the Argentinian Government expect Britain would do? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 4, 2015, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943 "2015-08-04T01:48:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/21 "2015-08-04T04:58:15Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > But it’s an effective refutation that nobody has heard of the Munroe Doctrine since the Great War. As late as 1961 US administrations were taking it seriously enough to cite it in relation to current events. And, yes, Cuba is closer than Argentina, but the Munroe Doctrine is usually stated as applying throughout the Americas. The US considers that European nations should not maintain colonies or interfere with states in either North or South America. This may not be the live issue that it was in the nineteenth century, but the US has never abandoned this position. And, of course, it was a live issue with respect to the Falklands. As it happens, the US didn’t invoke the Munroe doctrine in that context, but it wasn’t completely off the wall for the Argentinians to think of it as factor that would lead the US not to favour a British military response. A. I never said no-one has heard of the Monroe Doctrine since the “Great War”; I don’t think anyone on this board is that old. B. Just because they cited it, doesn’t mean they took it seriously. C. I’m pretty sure you are mis-interpreting the doctrine; I don’t believe it was intended to challenge the rights of European countries to existing colonies. D. It was completely off the wall the think the U.S. would support just about any other country in a military dispute with the U.K. in the late 20th century, at least over the Monroe Doctrine. E. You cannot take anything the USSR and the US said about each other during most of the 20th century seriously; it was primarily bombast and posturing, just like the Cuban missile crisis. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/22 "2015-08-04T05:19:18Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > The US considers that European nations should not maintain colonies or interfere with states in either North or South America. [Monroe Doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine) > [@](#): > > The occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers. > … > > We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. **With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere**. But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States. Existing colonies were OK, new colonies weren’t. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/23 "2015-08-04T05:23:29Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > [Monroe Doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine) > > Existing colonies were OK, new colonies weren’t. Well, not to nitpick or anything, but the Falklands wasn’t an existing colony of the UK when the Munroe Doctrine was adopted. ---
**Author:** ![russian\_heel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f05b48/32.png) [@russian\_heel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/russian_heel)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/24 "2015-08-04T05:27:05Z")
Just throwing some ideas out there, this was after Vietnam, after the Iran hostage crisis, and after USSR invaded Afghanistan, and Im wondering if third world countries mis-perceived Western countries as weak and impotent and with the UK also struggling to maintain peace in its own backyard in Northern Ireland, surely the macho Argentine military junta felt a woman would not dare send her military 7000 miles away just to take a few islands full of sheep. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/25 "2015-08-04T05:29:52Z")
> [@j666](#): > > A. I never said no-one has heard of the Monroe Doctrine since the “Great War”; I don’t think anyone on this board is that old. > > B. Just because they cited it, doesn’t mean they took it seriously. > > C. I’m pretty sure you are mis-interpreting the doctrine; I don’t believe it was intended to challenge the rights of European countries to existing colonies. > > D. It was completely off the wall the think the U.S. would support just about any other country in a military dispute with the U.K. in the late 20th century, at least over the Monroe Doctrine. > > E. You cannot take anything the USSR and the US said about each other during most of the 20th century seriously; it was primarily bombast and posturing, just like the Cuban missile crisis. The whole Munroe Doctrine is bombast and posturing; it is emphatically not the business of the US to have a view as to who should govern any territory that is not part of the US. But, having said that, it was a strong principle of US foreign policy for a long time. And an Argentinian military junta would be the last group to think that, merely because a stated position is bombast and posture, therefore it won’t influence anybody’s actions or attitudes. I haven’t suggested, and I don’t think that the Argentinian junta thought, that the Monroe doctrine would lead the US to support them against the UK in a stoush over the Falklands; just that it was a factor which might tend to weight the US more towards discouraging the British from attempting a military retaking of the island. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/26 "2015-08-04T05:42:38Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > People seem to forget that the HMS Sheffield was sunk by Argentina using a (French) Exocet air-launched anti-ship missile. That begs the question, of whether Argintinia knew of the brits weakness in missile defense… The brits problem was that they had long range missile detection radar on one ship, and short range missile detection radar on another. Now with the ships having to be close by, in order to communicate and compare reports, they often crossed paths and blanked out one or both radars… Did the Argentinians know this was going to be the case ? Perhaps they thought the brits had no such radar. it was new at the time… hence the two different deployments. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/27 "2015-08-04T05:44:12Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Well, not to nitpick or anything, but the Falklands wasn’t an existing colony of the UK when the Munroe Doctrine was adopted. Without getting into all the complicated back and forth between France, Spain, the UK, and eventually Argentina dating to the 1760s, they didn’t clearly belong to Argentina either. The US having effectively accepted the UK’s possession since at least the 1840s, it would be difficult to assert the Monroe Doctrine with respect to them in the 1980s. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/28 "2015-08-04T05:57:03Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Without getting into all the complicated back and forth between France, Spain, the UK, and eventually Argentina dating to the 1760s, they didn’t clearly belong to Argentina either. Granted. But the Monroe Doctrine wouldn’t be infringed by Argentina acquiring or holding the Falklands. > [@Colibri](#): > > The US having effectively accepted the UK’s possession since at least the 1840s, it would be difficult to assert the Monroe Doctrine with respect to them in the 1980s. Oh, sure. I’m not suggesting that Argentina expected the US to “assert the Monroe doctrine” and so oppose the UK’s attempts to recover the Falkands - just that they hoped that the considerations which led the US to adopt and adhere to the Monroe Doctrine for so long would also lead the US generally to prefer an outcome in which the Falklands ended up Argentinian rather than British. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/29 "2015-08-04T06:05:12Z")
The Argentines came pretty close to winning as it is, a few more bombs exploding when they hit British ships and we would not be having this conversation. The Argentine Airforce nearly won the war and if their Army and Navy had shown a bit more gumption they would have. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/30 "2015-08-04T06:05:41Z")
Does anyone with \> 2 functioning brain cells actually believe that the US did NOT manipulate Latin America, especially in the 20th century? See [Grenada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Grenada) 1983, Reagan. ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/31 "2015-08-04T06:34:45Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > Does anyone with \> 2 functioning brain cells actually believe that the US did NOT manipulate Latin America, especially in the 20th century? > > See [Grenada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Grenada) 1983, Reagan. \ Grenada is NOT Latin America. Not even close. \ The US had its collective fingers all over Central America, for sure. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/32 "2015-08-04T06:35:28Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > Does anyone with \> 2 functioning brain cells actually believe that the US did NOT manipulate Latin America, especially in the 20th century? > > See [Grenada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Grenada) 1983, Reagan. Not a reference, obviously, but when I was in High School back then, the American interventionism in Latin America was presented as a continuation of the Monroe doctrine. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/33 "2015-08-04T09:19:30Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Did they say to themselves: “a worn-out lion - she’ll roar a bit and that will be it?” As I remember it, basically yes. A lot of people at all levels argued against the use of military force. Many others, including my father, said it was a Fait Accompli and there was nothing to be done. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/34 "2015-08-04T12:14:57Z")
I doubt that 5% of the British population could have found The Falkland Islands on a map (I couldn’t) and 90% had probably never even heard of them before the Argentinian Government decided to claim them. The key factor seems to have been the [proposed] decommissioning of the so called Fisheries Protection Vessel HMS Endurance, the only significant military presence in the area. Galtieri, desperate to prop up his failing regime and to placate his military, who no doubt assured him that it would be as easy as America’s invasion of Grenada (An ex British colony) proved to be a year later. Thatcher’s response was a well calculated exercise in political expediency. By making the attack on The Falklands into an attack on the British way of life, she ensured a Conservative victory a year later. ---
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/35 "2015-08-04T13:18:01Z")
One word - Gurkha ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/36 "2015-08-04T14:45:20Z")
> [@j666](#): > > A. I never said no-one has heard of the Monroe Doctrine since the “Great War”; I don’t think anyone on this board is that old. > > B. Just because they cited it, doesn’t mean they took it seriously. > > C. I’m pretty sure you are mis-interpreting the doctrine; I don’t believe it was intended to challenge the rights of European countries to existing colonies. > > D. It was completely off the wall the think the U.S. would support just about any other country in a military dispute with the U.K. in the late 20th century, at least over the Monroe Doctrine. > > E. You cannot take anything the USSR and the US said about each other during most of the 20th century seriously; it was primarily bombast and posturing, just like the Cuban missile crisis. You are correct in asserting that the Monroe Doctrine would not entail support for Argentina in seizing the Falklands. You are very _incorrect_ in dismissing it as an obsolete relic of a bygone age. The Monroe Doctrine has been an animating principle of US foreign policy for almost 200 years. It was cited and taken **very, very seriously** during the Cuban Missile Crisis–so seriously, in fact, that the Kennedy administration was willing to go to the brink of nuclear war to uphold it. If China attempts to establish military bases in the Western Hemisphere at some point during the Twenty-First Century, I expect it to come into play again. ---
**Author:** ![jimbuff314](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c57346/32.png) [@jimbuff314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimbuff314)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/37 "2015-08-04T15:07:13Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > […] The key factor seems to have been the [proposed] decommissioning of the so called Fisheries Protection Vessel HMS Endurance, the only significant military presence in the area. Galtieri, desperate to prop up his failing regime and to placate his military, who no doubt assured him that it would be as easy as America’s invasion of Grenada (An ex British colony) proved to be a year later. > […] Somehow, I’m thinking “No, Galtieri’s fellow military leaders probably did _not_ assure him it would be as easy as America’s invasion of Grenada, a year and a half in the future at the time.” YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/38 "2015-08-04T15:26:57Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > . If China attempts to establish military bases in the Western Hemisphere at some point during the Twenty-First Century, I expect it to come into play again. China is not a European power. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/39 "2015-08-04T15:40:37Z")
> [@jimbuff314](#): > > Somehow, I’m thinking “No, Galtieri’s fellow military leaders probably did _not_ assure him it would be as easy as America’s invasion of Grenada, a year and a half in the future at the time.” > > YMMV. \ “_assured him that it would be as easy as America’s invasion of Grenada (An ex British colony) **turned out to be** a year late_r” ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/40 "2015-08-04T15:51:04Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > I don’t pretend to have one and, in the context, I don’t need one. The salient question at the time was not how the UK military capability in 1984 compared to that of Portugal in 1961, but how it compared to the requirements of retaking the Falklands by force. The relevance of the Portuguese example is simply that it shows that a colonial power, faced with a military challenge to its colonial position, may decide not to defend its colonial position. Had the British made such a decision, it would not have been unprecedented. > > As already pointed out, the US Navy’s assessment of the British military capacity was that it was impossible for them to retake the Falklands by force. The assessment was wrong, as we know, but if the US could make that assessment then quite possibly the Argentinians could also, and they could also think it would be rational in that situation for the UK to make the decision the Portuguese had made twenty-three years earlier. Plus, the UK had taken a number of steps which the Argentinians wishfully read as signalling a lack of commitment to their South Atlantic possessions - depriving the islanders of full UK citizenship, scheduling the withdrawal of HMS Endurance from the region in its 1981 Defence Review, etc, etc. The Defence Review, in fact, gave effect to a decision to concentrate Britain’s (rapidly declining) naval resources on the UK role in NATO, and effectively to give up the ability to act independently outside the NATO area. If that _was_ the British strategic stance, it wasn’t illogical to think that they might not attempt to retake the Falklands by force. (In fact, if the Argentinians had waited another couple of years for the UK to implement its Defence Review in full, it might actually have been impossible for the British to retake the Falklands, and they might not have tried.) From memory the British military themselves had doubts whether or not the islands could be retaken. The initial briefings to Thatcher at least were fairly downbeat. I can’t remember his name but only the intervention of one of her Naval Chiefs convinced her that a Task Force sufficient for the job could be deployed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943.md?page=3)