During the Falklands Crisis in the spring of 1982, then-State Secretary Haig said that the U.S.'s Atlantic ties were far more important than those with Latin America. (Combs, Jerald A. The History of American Foreign Policy: From 1895. Vol. 1. ME Sharpe, 2008, p. 283) Strategically speaking, why did Haig say that?
What continent are most of the NATO countries on? And what was the purpose of NATO?
While we cannot read Al Haig’s mind, considering those two questions will lead you to an answer that is most likely the correct one.
There’s a good account here of how the US position evolved from neutral-ish to coming down firmly on backing the UK - and providing logistical support.
TIL that the US offered the use of an aircraft carrier.
Most of the NATO countries are in Western Europe, and the purpose of NATO is to fight against the USSR and Warsaw Pact countries. I ask the question because I think at the time some Latin American countries were also fighting communism in Central America, which was also important to US foreign policy. By comparison, I think both ties with NATO countries and Latin American ones are equally important. That’s why I ask for your help.
That’s why they stayed neutral at the beginning. Within the administration, Haig always advocated that ties with NATO were more important.
Can I also interpret that most NATO countries are highly industrialized and developed, whereas those in Latin America were not at the time?
You could. And also that the US’s role in Europe (and the Middle East) were central to the perception of the US as a global superpower in the way that its role in Latin America — its own backyard, so to speak — was not.
Because South America was far away from the Soviet Union? Seems kind of obvious to me.
Or, other countries like Honduras could take over Argentina’s job if the then-authoritarian state had quit its anti-Sandinista operations in Central America. But Britain had been a cornerstone of NATO, and the U.S. could not afford to lose it. Correct?
Pretty much.
That’s a really poorly worded wiki article, the US offered the amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima which was a helicopter carrier capable of operating Harrier VTOL jets.
Retired U.S. Navy Admiral James “Ace” Lyons, commander of the U.S. Second Fleet at the time of the conflict, helped develop the plan to supply the Royal Navy with Iwo Jima if the Hermes or Invincible were lost. Though primarily a helicopter carrier, at least one Iwo Jima-class ship was qualified to operate the American version of the Sea Harrier, according to the 1982 edition of Combat Fleets of the World.
“We decided that the USS Iwo Jima would be the ship that would be the easiest for the British to operate and would make for a smooth transfer,” Lyons told the U.S. Naval Institute on June 26. “We also identified ‘contract advisors’ who would be on board to help the British with some of the systems.”
Thanks, that makes much more sense.
Not to mention, America was mostly European (and African-American, of course) at the time, not as much Latino - especially the governing “establishment”. Spoke the same language as the UK. (sort of…) Along with the NATO, industrial trade, democracy, etc. mentioned - more aligned with their European partners than with Latin America.
Plus there’s the general concept from the founding of the UN that not respecting established borders was an inviation to chaos - as evidenced by the Falklands, Kuwait, Crimea and the rest of Ukraine, East Timor, Palestine, etc.
Is Argentnia “Latino”? It seems mostly white to me. It’s like 85% European and less than 15% mixed, given that there wasn’t a huge local population like Mexico during the conquista.
I know, I know, you’re Latino if you’re from Latin America regardless of race. Except, well, the implication above seems to be about brown people versus white people, so perhaps “Latino” isn’t a good descriptor.
The percentage of the U.S. population that self-identifies as Latino is still less than 20% (just). And a tiny fraction of those are Argentinian.
Yes, Argentina was highly European rather than mixed, unlike the areas taken earlier by the conquistadors. (One item I read - much of Latin America was colonized by single men seeking their fortune who took local wives, whereas the temperate settles - Chile, Argentina, USA and Canada - were settled by entire families trying to create small pockets of Europe, with much less ethnic mixing.)
America is about 20% Latino now, what was it in 1980? (Considering a large influx of Latinos in the last 4 decades)
Here’s a snippet on that point:
Percentage of US population of Mexican origin (1910–1930) and of Hispanic/Latino origin (1940–2020)
| 1910 | 1920 | 1930 | 1940 | 1950 | 1960 | 1970 | 1980 | 1990 | 2000 | 2010 | 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.4% | 0.7% | 1.2% | 1.4% | 4.7% | 6.4% | 9.0% | 12.5% | 16.3% | 18.7% |
The data gap in 1950 & 1960 is in the original.
The entire monster article with lots more details is here:
Also, mind you, the “Latin” in “Latin America” was a designator the academic elites back in the 19th century came up with for political reasons. It was only with the passage of time that the people in general embraced the term as identifying us.
And the USA Latino population at the time (and to this day) being mostly Mexican-American, Puerto Rican, Cuban and then-relatively-newcoming Central American, there would only be very superficial identification with Argentina. Not really a deal breaker for anyone, and if anything, at the popular level there would be no love lost for the Juntas. The only segment of that population that would be gung-ho on supporting anyone “anticommunist” would be the Cubans and in this particular conflict that was not at play.
Thank you all.
The fastest way to piss off an Argentinian is to suggest they might have been tainted with native blood.