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Comment by RcouF1uZ4gsC | Hacker News Reader

> At the end of 1980, a minister from the Foreign Office visited Stanley and proposed to an apprehensive audience in the town hall that the Falklands be given to Argentina in a long-term “leaseback” arrangement, similar to the one that Britain and China had for Hong Kong.

Glad Britain ended up taking a different route with the Falklands than what they did with Hong Kong.

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The Falklands can be defended against Argentina.

Hong Kong can not be defended against China.

> The Falklands can be defended against Argentina.

Barely. The Falklands was touch and go, Britain was only one or two Exocets away from losing. To bomb the runway at Port Stanley, the Vulcan bombers required in flight refuelling 4 times. And the tankers that refuelled them had to be in flight refuelled themselves. The whole thing was cobbled together with string and duct tape and it only just worked.

I somehow doubt this,..even if the UK aircraft carrier were sunk, the British armed forces had _plenty_ of capabilities to bring to bear. While It wasn't quite a US Vs Iraq situation, it was very lopsided in terms of training, equipment, morale and finances.

Years of downsizing of the British Navy and the reduction of the merchant fleet to cheaper flags of convenience left the UK with a very poor capability for a maritime invasion. The Task Force that sailed to the Falklands was a rag-tag group of various ships including supply vessels used in the North Sea. Had the Argentinians pilots that attacked the fleet had been a little more successful I seriously doubt the British would have had the capability to launch another one.

All of that is very likely true, but I was arguing that the Argentine military was no match, not even close to a match to the UK Armed forces. The outcome was never in doubt, just casualty counts on both sides.

I'd be more interested on what the local population thinks about this.

AFAIK, most want to be under UK control.

The 2013 Falklands referendum was quite decisive. As the article mentions, only 3 people (0.20%) voted against retaining their status as an overseas territory of Great Britain.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Falkland_Islands_sovereig...

I've visited. The Falklands are more patriotic British than England is.

Argentina is not a dictatorship atm. You are glad that a super power became more powerful here.

Argentina was a dictatorship when this question was being decided (1980) and still was when Argentina decided to invade (1982).

Ironically, that dictatorship was set-up partly in thanks to the US.

How is that ironic? Almost all dictatorships in history have overt or not so overt approval from major powers of the time.

Yeah I'm also curious - you mean ironic in the context of this discussion regarding the fate of the Falkland Islands and the United Kingdom, or in some more broader (unrelated) way with regard to the United States as a democracy? Or something different? Genuinely curious, not piling on.

It's not ironic, it's irrelevant if an unfortunate part of US history. But if you want to derail the conversation to your pet anti-American diatribe, it's a great intro.

It’s somewhat ironic in that the US and UK are close allies but the US’ ongoing experiments with regime change created mutiple wars for the UK. Not that the UK hasn’t done its own regime change experiments.

No, it's not ironic. And it has nothing to do with the Faulklands war. It's just an opening for people like you to pipe up in conversations where it's irrelevant and say "you know, it's ironic (even though it's not) that the US does bad things...", because you want to bring up the fact the US does bad things.

We get it. It's true. But it's a derail to insert it when it is neither ironic or relevant.

It would be ironic in the sense of unintended consequences perhaps, but assumes the US was "intending" to avoid an FI invasion in making its decisions about propping up the Junta. In reality, concerns about the FI were probably miniscule in the foreign policy calculus exercised by the US at the time. Those policy decisions started during the Ford administration. The invasion happened over two decades later, literally a few months after a new general took over the government (i.e. quite suddenly). When the invasion happened the US dropped all support of Argentina and threw their resources behind the UK.

The motivation of the US foreign policy decision in late 50's must be seen in the context of the Cold War. In Argentina at the time, the US saw the alternative government as a communist/marxist regime with Soviet support/presence. How many other communist regime changes in the second half of the 20th century do you recall that did NOT adopt expansionist policies under the banner of "reunification"? We can imagine the US thinking the risk of Argentinian expansion was higher with a communist regime than with the Junta, but likely the US was more concerned about who controlled Cape Horn, the vast territory in South America that Argentina already controlled, the proximity to the US, etc. Plus, there was already significant concern about existing marxist movements taking other SA countries (meaning expansionism probably wasn't a huge concern so much as the development of a bloc of discrete soviet satellite states). Argentina was considered a bulwark to those movements. So the FI, safely under UK's wing, probably wasn't a primary motivator of US policy towards Argentina at the time.

Maybe there's some other unseen connection between the US and the FI invasion that you or other commenter can point out (e.g. did the US actively consider the fate of the FI in the 50's when they decided to prop up the Junta? Did the Carter administration know there were plans to invade when it softened support for Argentina which Reagan then reversed and enabled such an invasion? Those kinds of may make a better case for a connection and irony in the context of the Falklands War but it would be news to me). Seems like a pretty irrelevant and tenuous comment otherwise.

One of the things I've never seen a proper history of is how badly the UK failed to win international support. Yes, the area south of the Equator is explicitly excluded from NATO. But the UK got nothing whatsoever from anyone, except maybe a bit of technical assistance from France against the Exocet missiles. And yet the failure of the US to assist didn't impair the rather one-sided "special relationship".

At the time, I'd assumed failure of US to assist was some linear combination of (a) Monroe Doctrine, and (b) the juntas having been a client state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_War

(to this day https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerra_de_las_Malvinas doesn't explicitly mention that the victors called it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War )

Look at the Portuguese fighting retreat from their India colonies twenty years earlier and ask what was the point of the violence? Look at the west's war in Vietnam and ask what was the point? Look at the Falklands and ask???

I'm surprised The Onion hasn't updated their classic article https://www.theonion.com/u-s-to-give-every-iraqi-3-544-91-le... for current estimated expenditures.

An alt-history counterfactual theory: if the US had not supported the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan might've joined the Warsaw Pact and then had a peaceful revolution (like almost all the rest) around 1989, with all the attendant advantages for a better version of this century.

The following claims to be 1980's afghanistan, but I can't tell if the Boney M soundtrack was original or not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZRZLwLXU3E (Boney M was apparently popular in Afghanistan, but other videos with the same dancer are to more indigenous tunes)

maybe better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrxgwM8h7ek&t=30

The same could be said about the interference of the US and UK in Iran. Our whole history in the area seems to be one shot after another in the foot.

One of those is not like the others: there never was an indigenous population on the Falklands. It was uninhabited until claimed by Europeans. It was the Argentine occupation that was "pointless" occupation of the colonists against their will.

(To be fair, the UK's defense of the Falklands was also hugely expensive, caused significant loss of life and may eventually have proved unnecessary, but at least it was a valid position under international law)

Prime Minister Thatcher was strongly advised to seek a diplomatic solution by the UK military leadership at them time and there was considerable international pressure to do so. It was militarily a very risky operation at the very limit of our capabilities.

What do you mean by the "failure of the US to assist"?

1) The US ceased their support of the Junta when the invasion happened.

2) The US attempted to broker a diplomatic solution

3) The US loaded out the UK Harriers with sidewinder missiles, and provided their troops with stinger missiles

4) The US, at UK's request, had the USS Iwo Jima ready to go for operation in theater along with a bevy of American military contractors/advisors.

5) The US had also readied the USS Guam to be ready for assistance even though the UK hadn't requested it.

6) The US repositioned a spy satellite from the Northern Hemi to the Southern to assist the UK with intelligence

7) The US diverted 12.5 million gallons of aviation fuel to the theater to support UK's air campaign. The Americans moved a supertanker into the theater to support ship operations. Major Julian Thompson, commander of the Royal Marines assault force stated that the HMS Fearless didn't have enough fuel to even dock when it arrived in theater, and US-supplied fuel made it happen.

8) the US supplied mortar shells, airfield matting and other equipment to the UK for the operation

The Washington Post said in 1984, of the Falklands War, "American intelligence information...probably made the key difference between winning and losing...."

The Economist in 1984 stated that the war "could not have been mounted, let alone won, without American help".

The Guardian in 2002 quoted an advisor to Thatcher as saying that "[Britain] would have lost the [war] in 1982 if America had failed to provide crucial missles...."

Declassified CIA docs show that Sec. of State Al Haig visited London delivering the message, "“We are not impartial. We face a common problem. We must do all we can to strengthen you and your government.”

reading material:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1984/03/07/u...

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/cia-files-reveal-how-u...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/sep/06/falklands.world

Interested in knowing who considers the UK a superpower in 1980s, never mind in 2020s... Argentina is a regional power.

That a population of a tiny island much closer to a single country than to any other landmass nearby would prefer to stay effectively isolated and dependent on a "foreign" power, says for to the appeal of being part of Argentina than to whatever deal the UK has been offering to the Islanders.

Nothing like HK at all where majority of population actually doesn't mind (accepts) mainland rule

> Interested in knowing who considers the UK a superpower in 1980s, never mind in 2020s...

I don't know about "super", but they're one of maybe four countries with a credible second-strike nuclear capability, one of six that operate full-size aircraft carriers, maybe sixth on the list of global reserve currencies, G7 member...

It surprises me that although the Falklands War (and its anti-ship missiles) was last century, people are still eager to build full-size aircraft carriers.

(I will start taking scots' independence noises seriously after someone puts forth a concrete proposal about what to do with HMNB Clyde.)

What's the specific question as to why that means you can't take it seriously?

The big problem is the nuclear material, but getting rid of that has long been an undercurrent of independence anyway. I suspect what would most likely be negotiated would be some kind of "treaty port" arrangement for non-nuclear vessels. Scotland would likely not be an Ireland-style neutral.

The aircraft carriers are .. very much a "power projection" thing, like Trident, Britain buying itself international hard man status like a knuckle tattoo. On the other hand, there's no proven alternative to carriers for achieving air superiority away from land bases.

Not that I can't take the idea seriously, just that if the english were to identify where they'd move the sub pens, it would be easier to classify as being in the "project" category rather than in the "proposal."

It's apparent that England isn't going to plan for it any more than they're going to plan for Brexit. Whether it happens or not is kind of an orthogonal question to that. Although my personal opinion is that Irish reunification is more likely in the next decade, especially if the UK makes an EU-incompatible ag trade deal with the US.

The UK was, and still is, a nuclear power so I would argue it's closer to super than non.

Plus, there is a great quote about the US vs the UK regarding nuclear weapons:

- Everyone respects the US because they were the biggest NATO military and had nuclear weapons

- Everyone feared the UK because due to their island mentality, if push came to shove they wouldn't hesitate to use those nuclear weapons whereas the US was seen as forever hesitant to use them again.

Official doctrine is that they're a second strike weapon; if they're used, then that implies that most of the UK's major cities are already smoking craters.

Argentina is a seriously dysfunctional country though.

How so? I don't know much about Argentina, but I figured it was doing pretty well compared to most Latin American countries.

It's only doing pretty well compared to Venezuela if you consider inflation rates[1].

[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/FP.CPI.TOTL.ZG?most_rec...

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