Did Great Britain attempt to invoke any NATO treaty obligations during the Faulklands War? If I remember what happened correctly, it was a military attack on a member nation’s territory.
The Falklands (or, as the Argentines call them, the Malvinas) are not considered NATO territory although they belong to the UK; they’re too far south. NATO territory is defined as territory of any member nation north of a certain fixed parallel (I don’t know exactly which one, but I could look it uo if noone else posts it). The Argentine occupation was not an attack on the NATO as a whole and thus did not cause the Article 5 consequences.
The other, more grave, issue concerning that war was the fact that a European nation had waged war on the American continent, which is forbidden by the Monroe Doctrine and, AFAIK, also the OAS charta. Many American nations did indeed criticize the US for supporting Britain instead of supporting the OAS ally Argentina.
Article Five of the Washington Treaty reads (bolding mine):
Since the Falklands are not in Europe nor North America, it would seem that the treaty would not apply.
Article 2 of the Protocol to the North Atlantic Treaty (essentially the amendments) further specifies that Article 5 of the treaty also applies to
- Turkey (which is mostly in Asia)
- France’s Algeria departments (obsolete now, of course)
- Islands in the North Atlantic north of the Tropic of Cancer
- Military forces, aircraft, or ships of war in the North Atlantic or Meditteranean Sea
The Monroe Doctrine has absolutely zero force of law.
The Charter of the OAS says
However, for the Falklands War to be an act of aggression on the territory of Argentina, those islands would have had to be recognized as Argentine territory. I don’t think the US did.
Neither did anyone else. Lest we all forget how that war went, Argentina invaded the Falklands.
If I recall correctly, the Falkland Islanders themselves did not consider the islands part of Argentina, nor did they particularly want them to be. Someone correct me if I’m wrong here.
I believe that nearly all of the 2000 or so residents of the Falklands consider themselves British. The Falklands have been considered part of Britain since 1833.
Falkland Islanders were, and are, British. Virtually the entire population is of British descent, and they are British subjects; they wanted, and so far as I know still want, the islands to the British.
The Falkland Islands have been under continuous British rule since 1833. Argentina, which didn’t start claiminig ownership until the 20th century, has no moral or legal claim to the islands; the war was precipitated more as a distraction from Argentina’s terrible social and economic problems at the time.
Argentina invaded the Falklands on April 2, 1982, and conquered them in very short order; a small detachment of Royal Marines fought briefly but the governor of the Falklands ordered them to surrender. Initially, this had the desired effect in Argentina; crowds demonstrated in favor of a government they’d opposed the week before. On April 3, the British possessions of South Georgia and South Sandwich - a thousand miles east of the Falklands - were also captured. On the same day the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding withdrawal form all captured territories; by April 10 the EU passed trade sanctions.
The British took South Georgia on April 25.
The US, which had been trying to negotiate a peace, gave up on April 30 due to Argentine intransigence and declared support for Britain.
The first British air raid on Argentine forces was on May 1. On May 2, the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano was torpedoed and sunk by the British submarine Conqueror with terrible loss of life. The sinking occurred outside a mutually agreed to war zone, so any hope of negotiated peace is shot at that point.
On May 4, the Argentines return the favour, sinking the destroyer HMS Sheffield in a missile attack.
On May 21, the British landed on East Falkland and began sweeping up Argentine forces. They continued to lose ships, though; HMS Ardent was destroyed on May 21 by a missile, HMS Antelope on May 23 by a bomb. On May 23, Coventry is badly damaged and Atlantic Conveyor is sunk. Argentine air-to-air losses were very heavy, however.
On May 28 the British and Argentines met is a fierce little battle, Goose Green. Despite being outnumbered, the vastly superior British commandos easily defeated the Argentines, who were mostly untrained conscripts.
On June 12 the British take Mount Longdon, again in vicious fighting; soldiers were actually slugging each other with rifle butts and stabbing with bayonets. Ian McKay, who died in the battle, was later awarded the Victoria Cross. Around this time HMS Glamorgan is badly damaged in a missle attack.
On June 14, Argentine forces in Port Stanley, hopelessly surrounded, surrendered. June 14 is celebrated in the Falklands every year as Liberation Day.
Although the Falklands war isn’t much remembered, it was a remarkably nasty little war, and had a significant impact on politics, war, and naval technology. Almost a thousand men died, a lot of them Argentine kids who had been drafted just to fight the war.
The amazing success of Argentine pilots in their attacks on British shipping was, in the eyes of Western planners, an appalling indictment of ship vulnerability to missile attack. The much-vaunted Royal Navy was pretty much at the mercy of their airplanes to protect them from Argentine fighters with missiles, and these were just Mirage fighters with Exocets, not the really honkin’ American or Soviet missiles like Harpoons or Shipwrecks; had Argentina had those sorts of weapons the results might have been catastrophic. The naval losses, against a country like Argentina, were taken as something of a national disgrace, and were a real wakeup call to the world’s naval powers. NATO navies, and others, put a lot more emphasis in missile-to-missile and CIWS (Phalanx-type guns) development from that point on.
The war also ended the military government of Leo Galtieri, and Argentine reverted to democratic rule within a year. It also boosted the popularity of Margaret Thatcher, who was unpopular at the time and probably would have lost the next election, but as it turned out was reelected.
Nitpick: Continuous except for that one troublesome month you mentioned.
Also our American Allies did supply us with all the help we needed, in particular Sidewinder missiles and satellite inteligence.
Compare and contrast this with the French, who whilst our ships were being hit by their missiles, sold Argentina another batch. This led to the very real possibility of the British navy sinking French merchantmen.
We’re friendly with Argentina again now. It may take a little longer for the French.
It’s not right, owlstretchingtime, to say the french didn’t help.
They helped to trace every Exocet and, vitally, helped us (and allowed us) to set up a wonderfully successful sting operation in Paris.
Argentina were willing to pay whatever it took to bag any and all Exocet’s being offered on the open market – the Sting was to get the Argentineans and French to refer all potential business to our ‘independent third-party’ arms dealers. We were the Argentineans agents.
Nice piece of work by the Security Services that couldn’t have happened without French co-operation.
well yes and no London calling.
The sting you describe accurately.
They did however agree to sell exocets to Peru, that Peru had already ordered prior to hostilities, in the full and certain knowledge that they would have ended up on fighter bombers aimed at our ships.
And they call us perfidious albion!
It is true that the Argentine government thought it would be a nationalist victory to gain support of their people and that the British would not fight over the islands. The Battle for the Falklands is a very good book on the subject.
Also true that the population are of British descent and want to remain under British rule. But to say Argentina has no moral or legal claim is stretching it. I am not saying I agree with them at all but I have to play devil’s advocate. There is the, obvious, geographical reason for the Falklands to be Argentinian and the general concept that European countries should stay out of the Americas. But their main clain is that the British took the Islands from Spain when Argentina was still Spain and British rule has never been recognized by them. Argentina claims they inherited the rights to the Malvinas. A pretty weak claim if you ask me but there it is.
Sailor’s right. Argentina has claimed ownership of the Falklands ever since Argentina gained independence from Spain. The British had been there in the 18th century, but had been chased out by the Spanish (nearly precipitating another British-Spanish war). Argentina claimed the Falklands as an inheritance from Spain, and actually sent a force to occupy the islands sometime around 1819 or 1820. The Argentine forces were destroyed by an American flotilla sent by Andrew Jackson, over I forget what dispute. Shortly thereafter, in 1833, Britain arrived and “reclaimed” the islands based on their earlier occupation and claims.
IMHO, the wishes of the inhabitants of the Falklands, who clearly prefer to remain British, ought to trump any claims the Argentines have to the islands. Still, it is not accurate to say that the Argentines did not claim ownership until the 20th century.
That is completely false, and you’re also wrong about Peru. France not only refused to sell Argentina any more missiles, they refused to deliver missiles to Peru because they were afraid they might end up in Argentina. They came up with a variety of lame excuses to delay delivery until after the war.
Argentina had only six missiles and that was it; they had no way of getting more. Had they had a full supply it’s quite likely the Royal Navy would have been chased out of the South Atlantic. Four of the six hit their targets, sinking three ships and damaging two others; the mind boggles at such amazing accuracy. Makes you wonder what would have happened if they’d had 60.
France also put a sting out on an arms dealer trying to get Exocets on the black market, AND gave Britian classified information on the Exocet’s guidance system. France went the extra mile to help the UK, quite frankly, and did far more than most nations would.
Sure, but European nations have nonetheless always been very eager not to violate it.
From the Argentine point of view, the Falklands/Malvinas invasion was absolutely legal since they consider the archipelago part of the Argentine Republic. Many Latin Americans share this opnion, so there was much ado among them about the US not supporting Argentina.
The crucial parallel is the Northern Tropic, btw.
The french did not deliver the peruvian missiles as they were informed in no uncertain terms that the boat would be sunk. Not out of any desire to help us.
Thank god the Argentinians never got their hands on them, as we were basically defenceless against them.
France didn’t go an extra metre, never mind a mile to help us.
The Falklands war was engineered and suited the politicians on both sides of the dispute.
The residents of the Falkland islands were not British Nationals in the proper sense of the word, their passports did not entitle them to residency in the UK, they were Falkland Island passports and not British, though since many had close ties through family some may have been entitled to UK residency under the same rules that allow former subjects of the Commonwealth the right to live here.
This may seem a brusque and overly definitive statement but I have posted on this subject before with reasons for my opinion and have no desire to do so again, so you will have to use the search facility.
Surely it wasn’t an unqualified success for Galtieri and his junta?
And, by the way, what do people have against the French? I mean, as an Englishman (and an archer) I hold no particular brief for our Gallic neighbours, but some of the comments made about them in this thread, and others, seem unnecessarily vituperative…