Two Tales of the Falkland Islands (Part I)
The Falklands are an archipelago off the coast of Argentina in the south Atlantic Ocean. Its population is minuscule — 2,932 people in 2012. That’s less than half the undergraduate population of Duke. It has a GDP of only $164 million, but its $55,400 GDP per capita is the 20th highest in the world. (Side note: The range of countries’ GDP per capita is truly staggering — Qatar and Luxembourg above $100k, Somalia and Burundi below $1000). The 750-plus islands that comprise it are not so big — the total land area is less than the size of Connecticut.
It is an overseas territory of Britain, but the claim to its rule has been the source of much controversy in their history. The most recent Argentinean polls say that 80% of people want Argentina to take back the Islas Malvinas (the Spanish name). On the other hand, the Falklanders aren’t about that. In March 2013, a referendum vote in the Falklands asked citizens “Do you wish the Falkland Islands to retain their current political status as an overseas territory of the United Kingdom?” The result — 1,518 affirmative votes, 3 negative. 3. gg.
Nevertheless, the Argentinean desire to reclaim the Falkalnds persists. To understand why, we must dig into its history.
Britain vs. Argentina
In 1690, British explorer John Strong (great name) stumbled onto the islands on a foray to the Peruvian/Chilean coast on the other side of South America. Strong thought the islands were quite beautiful and chock-full of wildlife, but didn’t think much more of it and continued on his way. In the early-1760s, France, Spain, and Britain all set up small colonies on different islands through the archipelago. Historians believe that for most of the next few years, these colonies existed without knowledge of the others. In 1766, the French bowed out and handed their colony over to Spain. In 1770, the Spaniards went on the offensive and captured the English colony. They then realized they didn’t want to poke the bear of the English empire, and ended up handing the port back in 1771.
In 1774, the British colony decided to withdraw, but they left a plaque claiming that, even though they were leaving, the islands belonged to England in the name of King George III. The Spanish colonies transitioned to prison camps (like Australia was for the English), and by 1811, the entire island was deserted after the Spanish peaced out as well.
Argentina, long a colony of Spain, gained its independence in 1816, and set out to do some colonizing of their own. Their first target? The Falklands, 300 miles off the coast of Patagonia.
They arrived, found no existing civilizations except for this dumb plaque left by the English, and a few yolo fishermen who stayed behind, and claimed the islands as a territory of Argentina. They set up a settlement to go with their claim of sovereignty, but the British showed back up in 1833. Uh oh.
A few years later, Britain brought with them intentions of setting up the island’s first permanent population, and the Argentineans were pissed. But the people spoke, and all those in the Argentine settlement staged a mutiny and went to join the British. Yikes.
For the next 125 years, Argentina meekly challenged the British claim to the island. Eventually, they became enough of a nuisance that the UN declared the territory a “colonial problem” in 1965.
Everything changed in 1982, however. Argentina had gone through decades of turmoil, culminating in the Dirty War of the 1970s that pitted the guerilla rebels against the junta military government. In 1979, the junta had finally stamped out the resistance, but only at the expense of several years of state terrorism and the killing of an estimated 15,000–30,000 left wing activists associated with socialism. The head of the Argentine junta government was General Leopoldo Galtieri. He was in power, sure, but was extremely unpopular. His list of alleged transgressions during the Dirty War was extensive; he was accused of personally ordering the kidnapping and brutal killing of left-wing leaders.
So Galtieri threw a Hail Mary of sorts, and tried to appeal to the nationalistic desires of his people by taking back the Falklands, once and for all. He sent troops to the islands, and after some feeble resistance by the British colony, Galtieri declared victory.
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was enraged. In a similar vein to “we don’t negotiate with terrorists,” she dispatched British troops to deal with this show of bravado from Argentina. She even conceded that the land was “inconsequential and unprofitable,” but that there were “British lives to protect.”
The US Navy was rumored to have said that a successful counter-invasion by the English would be a “military impossibility.” The English said “fuck that” and dispatched a massive task force of 127 ships across the Atlantic.
The British and Argentines began their fight over a piece of land that was essentially meaningless to both on a geopolitical scale. The war had its twists and turns — England started as a massive underdog given that they were so far from home. So far from their home, they had no hope to match the air support capabilities that Argentina could bring to bear. They painstakingly established a base on a nearby island, and flew in as many fighter jets and other air personnel as they could. Finally, when they felt they had enough support, they launched their mission to reclaim the Falklands. The Argentines had set out a bunch of land mines around the islands, but the British were able to mount a series of strategic amphibious landings and slowly built their footprint back on the island. Argentina counter-attacked. Their main strategy was to bomb the British ships, the majority of the English firepower. The British anticipated this in part, and had staged their defenses to protect against high altitude flyovers. The Argentines knew this, so instead conducted their flyovers at a much lower altitude than expected. There were levels to this shit.
Now, normally, when you do a fly-over, you’re so high up that you’re well out of the lethal fragmentation zone of the bomb when it detonates. However, these flights were so low that in the normal detonation time, the plane itself wouldn’t be out of this zone and it would blow up too. So the Argentines improvised a solution to delay the detonation times so that their pilots could get out of the way.
However, through some debacle of engineering, these fuses didn’t just delay the detonation — they prevented it entirely. So the Argentines would flyover a ship, drop a bomb, think they crippled the British ships, and fly away. In reality, the British found a bunch of undetonated bombs on the decks of their ships. They were super confused but obviously not complaining about the situation. The craziest part is that the Argentines somehow didn’t realize this on their own. They only found out when the BBC released a news report about the failed bombs. One British commander said after the war that they were “about six undetonated bombs away from losing the war.”
The British staved off the counterattacks and successfully reclaimed most of the island. About two months after Argentina had invaded the Falklands, Britain re-took the capital city of Stanley and Argentina surrendered. The final casualties were staggering — in 70 days, Argentina lost 650 military lives, had 1,656 wounded, and lost 9 ships, 25 helicopters, and 35 fighter jets. Britain, on the other hand, lost 255 lives, and lost 7 ships, 24 helicopters, and 10 fighter jets.
Shockingly, this conflict remains the largest air-naval combat operation since the end of WWII. It had a massive impact on the political climates of both countries. In Britain, Margaret Thatcher’s popularity rocketed up, and many considered it a turning point in her party’s modern history. Before the conflict, her Conservative party had been trailing the SDP-Liberal alliance in the polls. After, they jumped to a wide lead and won the following election in a landslide. In Argentina, people were done with General Galtieri. In the next election, they elected a fully democratic government, doing away with the junta government once and for all (hopefully).
The best way to sum this all up is a quote from famous Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges — the two countries lost 900 lives “in a fight between two bald men over a comb.”
