# 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:** 18\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/41 "2015-08-04T16:45:28Z")
Had the Argentines built an airstrip at Port stanley (capable of handling jet fighters) the British would have failed. The Argentines thought the British would not fight-big mistake. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/42 "2015-08-04T16:54:38Z")
There was an airstrip at Port Stanley. It was [blown up by RAF Vulcans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Black_Buck) in the first days of the war, forcing the Argentine fighters to mostly operate from their own territory. It was promptly repaired and some transports and ground attack aircraft were launched from it. Nobody - including most of the RAF - thought it was possible for a heavy bomber strike to reach the Falklands, and it very nearly didn’t due to weather conditions that made in-flight refueling problematic. > [@usedtobe](#): > > How many “Banana Republics” had such exotica at the time? > > Why did the Junta feel obliged to buy very expensive missiles, modify aircraft to launch them and then train the ground and air crews? > > This is not a “Saturday night special” (a cheap handgun useful for robbing the liquor store, but as likely to blow up in your face as not) purchase “for protection”. > > The obvious (and, almost certainly only) reason for such a purchase was to be able to kill a ship much larger than anything operated by any South American country. Every modern navy operates anti-ship missiles. And Exocets were useful for attacking all sorts of ships, not just big ones (though I’ll note that [Brazil was operating an ex-Royal Navy aircraft carrier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_aircraft_carrier_Minas_Gerais) well before the Falklands conflict). ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/43 "2015-08-04T17:03:29Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Never mind direct comparisons with Portugal, the idea was that a 1982 European power would be more likely to do the calculus of utility and decide that it was not worth the treasure and blood to hit back. As pointed out the US Navy did not considet it a slam dunk by any means and Britain essentially had to throw everything it did not have tied up in NATO duty at the Falklands. \ ***On paper** \*the Argentine fleet and air force should have had plentiful home waters/sky advantage, had they bothered setting up a proper operation to face a counteroffensive. However… once the actual battle is engaged the differences in training, motivation, leadership, tactical and strategic doctrine including flexibility and initiative, command/control/communications, quality vs. quantity of equipment, begin making their difference. . For all the wasteful buying of hardware to show off on parade, the military in Argentina had as its main experience crushing their own citizens. > > Politically, Thatcher was unpopular at home, too, and the perception from the Argentinian side was that the fait-accompli of the taking of the South Atlantic Islands would just result in her government falling, not in a rallying-round-the-flag – because, as per the quote mentioned above by\*\* jimbuff314\*\*, they considered the Brits to have become corrupt, weak… one has to bear in mind, in Latin America the discourse about the decadent, corrupt, weak-spirited, materialistic, mercenary, amoral nature of the dominant US/NWEurope bloc was as much a standard propaganda line for the _right_ as it was for the **left** the whole century. > > **usedtobe** , Argentina was no classic “banana republic”. In the 60s and 70s it was the most industrialized country in South America and it was in a serious competition with Brazil as to which of them would be the Regional Power for the South Atlantic. To that end c. 1980 Argentina and Brazil both had larger-than-needed conventional militaries with operational fleet aircraft carriers (not just little Harrier jumpers, although both rather creaky), and modest fleets of guided-missile destroyers/frigates, submarines, fighter jets – and not all of it old surplus either, they had some some decently current material including Type 42 destroyers of the same class as the Sheffield; but yes, a lot of it was older mark and the way to balance things out at the time was for instance, since you can’t just buy a new carrier in time for next summer, load your fighters with new missiles, or load new missiles in box launchers on your old cruisers (the US did that with their battleships, remember?). Pinochet’s Chile was not too far behind as #3 in shows of martial capability. > > But it was not completely exclusive of the would-be regional powers either - Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela themselves were bolting on Exocets or Otomats to their vessels at the time, and buying Mirages and Israeli Mirage-clones and the ocassional Soviet/Russian gear. But let’s pause now and ask how many of those antiship missiles have been fired in anger since 1982 (sadly, the Ecuadoran and Peruvian air forces \*have \*gotten to use their toys on one another a few times). These military pourchases were mostly intended to keep commanders happy and thinking of new hardware instead of new counter coups. The Argentines in particular _did not have an adequate stock of Exocets or Super Etendards to sustain the operation_. They launched the invasion \*before \*most of their order was delivered. I’d second all this, particularly that 1) Argentina isn’t and wasn’t then a ‘third world’ country (except in the technical sense of not being formally allied with the U.S. or the USSR), and 2) despite seeing the western bloc as a Cold War ally, the Argentine government was a hardcore ultra-right wing ideological regime, to a degree it’s difficult to grasp, and they saw liberal democracies as decadent and weak. ---
**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, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/44 "2015-08-04T17:28:14Z")
> [@Kenm](#): > > China is not a European power. That certainly wouldn’t prevent the US from re-asserting the Monroe Doctrine if it were politically expedient. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/45 "2015-08-04T17:51:23Z")
> [@](#): > > 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 Air force nearly won the war and if their Army and Navy had shown a bit more gumption they would have. You may continue to believe that if you wish. Reality is, we lost fewer ships than we expected. Once the Belgrano was sunk, that was the end of Argentine navy involvement, without seaborne support they could never have flown enough material and supplies to keep their land based forces going. As it was their air force was not capable of breaking the blockade either. We could even have lost the land battle, the war was already lost. As for the political aspect in the UK, we’ve done this to death a number of times, and you can search for my previous posts on this subject. The reality is that we had sent deterrent forces down to the Falklands on three previous occasion - I served on Operation Journeyman which was the last of them. Given that our intelligence had provided adequate warning and prevented war on all those occasions, you have to wonder why those warnings, which were certainly received, were not heeded by an extremely unpopular government that was going to be wiped off the electoral map. Maybe it turned out for the better, maybe not, but it did topple a murderous Junta - responsible for the deaths of maybe 30,000 and although not to my political persuasion,it enabled Thatcher to be re-elected. Idealistically I despise Thatcher - the region where I live has been industrially devastated and will not recover for many generations however history is history. We live with the results and others have different views - they tend not to live in the North of England, Scotland or Wales Thatcher is the most divisive figure in British history and her legacy is increasingly likely to lead to the break up of the UK. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/46 "2015-08-04T19:07:54Z")
I think a big factor was that Argentina did not expect that international opinion would be so heavily in Britain’s favor. They probably convinced themselves they would get support as the “anti-imperialist” side in the conflict. (In reality, I think most countries saw the invasion more as an act of Argentinian imperialism rather than a blow against British imperialism.) The biggest hope of all was that the United States would at least stay neutral in the conflict. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2015, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/47 "2015-08-05T01:55:39Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > 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. You think the Monroe doctrine itself was more significant than the actual missiles? I don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2015, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/48 "2015-08-05T03:08:31Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I think a big factor was that Argentina did not expect that international opinion would be so heavily in Britain’s favor. They probably convinced themselves they would get support as the “anti-imperialist” side in the conflict. Fascist dictatorship running a dirty war against its own people, or democratic government elected under the rule of law: choices, choices… ---
**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 5, 2015, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/49 "2015-08-05T03:39:12Z")
> [@j666](#): > > You think the Monroe doctrine itself was more significant than the actual missiles? I don’t. I don’t know what you mean by this. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2015, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/50 "2015-08-05T04:31:17Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Fascist dictatorship running a dirty war against its own people, or democratic government elected under the rule of law: choices, choices… But in the early 1980s the Argentinian junta was looking at a US that had a long history of not being in the least bit bothered if its allies were Fascist dictators running dirty wars against their own people. They wouldn’t have expected the US to treat this particular characteristic of the Argentinian regime as a big black mark. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2015, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/51 "2015-08-05T12:01:57Z")
Sure, but had there ever previously been a head-to-head between a junta and a democracy where the US supported the junta? ---
**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 5, 2015, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/52 "2015-08-05T15:37:52Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Sure, but had there ever previously been a head-to-head between a junta and a democracy where the US supported the junta? The 1971 [war between India and Pakistan](http://www.theworldreporter.com/2011/10/1971-india-pakistan-war-role-of-russia.html) comes to mind. [Yahya Khan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahya_Khan) was the leader of the military government of Pakistan at the time. Throughout the Cold War, the US generally supported Pakistan, often under military control, against India, which was mostly democratic. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2015, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/53 "2015-08-05T15:55:16Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > I don’t know what you mean by this. I think he’s saying that the salient point in “the Kennedy administration was willing to go to the brink of nuclear war” was not the legal/diplomatic concept of the Monroe doctrine, but the fact that the Soviets were installing nuclear missiles in Cuba pointed at the USA. Even in the absence of the Monroe doctrine, Kennedy would probably have been willing to go to the brink of nuclear war over that particular issue, and conversely, in the absence of nuclear missiles in Cuba, he probably wouldn’t have been willing to go to the brink of nuclear war just to uphold the Monroe doctrine. It’s called the Cuban Missile Crisis after all, not the Cuban Monroe Doctrine 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 5, 2015, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/54 "2015-08-05T19:18:34Z")
> [@casdave](#): > > Idealistically I despise Thatcher - the region where I live has been industrially devastated and will not recover for many generations however history is history. > We live with the results and others have different views - they tend not to live in the North of England, Scotland or Wales > > Thatcher is the most divisive figure in British history and her legacy is increasingly likely to lead to the break up of the UK. **Moderator Note** Since this is in GQ, let’s refrain from the additional political commentary. No warning issued, but let’s stick to factual information rather than opinions. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2015, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/55 "2015-08-05T19:34:52Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > The obvious (and, almost certainly only) reason for such a purchase was to be able to kill a ship much larger than anything operated by any South American country. One would think any country with a large coastline that wants a significant military capability will possess some sort of anti-ship weapon. That still fails to demonstrate that Argentina purchased Exocet missiles specifically to attack the Falklands. As has been well demonstrated, Argentina’s Plan A would be that the British would NOT mount an expedition and therefore that Exocet would not have to be used. [QUOTE=casdave] Given that our intelligence had provided adequate warning and prevented war on all those occasions, you have to wonder why those warnings, which were certainly received, were not heeded by an extremely unpopular government that was going to be wiped off the electoral map. [/QUOTE] There really isn’t a lot to wonder; literally no part of the British apparatus of state believed Argentina would actually invade the Falklands. It was a gigantic intelligence failure. The fact that the UK had sent deterrents before was in part one of the reasons they didn’t in 1981/1982; it was very expensive to do so, the government was not rolling in money, and there was a clear sense that the boy was crying wolf. After all, nothing really happened in 1977, right? And hey, the Argentines weren’t Communists, who were Thatcher’s bugbear. Had the Thatcher government sent off a bunch of ships at a heavy cost and nothing had continued to happen they would have taken a significant popularity blow. Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence. ---
**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 5, 2015, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/56 "2015-08-05T19:45:53Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > I think he’s saying that the salient point in “the Kennedy administration was willing to go to the brink of nuclear war” was not the legal/diplomatic concept of the Monroe doctrine, but the fact that the Soviets were installing nuclear missiles in Cuba pointed at the USA. The installation, though, _was_ the violation. I mean, obviously, a violation with nukes is a lot more serious than, for example, when Germany threatened to land troops in Venezuela in 1902. But the principle is the same–hands off the Western Hemisphere, except where you were here in 1820. ---
**Author:** ![velomont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/8491ac/32.png) [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2015, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/57 "2015-08-07T15:55:55Z")
I was at RMC, Kingston (Canada) at that time and I remember reading in Jane’s Defence Weekly or something like that an interview with, ISTR, Haig. In it he said that Britain had to respond as they did because the USSR thought that all western nations were weak and corrupt and that this was an opportunity to prove otherwise. And in a weekly news magazine (Time, Newsweek or Maclean’s) there was a quote from the mother of an Argentinian soldier (after the Brits won) about how terrible it was that the Argentinian government “sent our boys to fight against the professionals”. ---
**Author:** ![jimbuff314](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c57346/32.png) [@jimbuff314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimbuff314)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2015, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943/58 "2015-08-07T16:25:48Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > \ “_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” I am aware that “proved to be” is semantically equivalent to “turned out to be”. You are still having military leaders assure their colleague that the invasion of the Falklands in early to mid-1982 will be (would have been, speaking from today’s perspective) as easy as the U.S. invasion of Grenada in late 1983. How is this possible? Presumably, the assurances were offered to Galtieri before the invasion took place. In 1982. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/falklands-what-did-the-argentinian-government-expect-britain-would-do/726943.md?page=2)