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Comment by cenuij | Hacker News Reader

Are you mad?

The UK could easily press the Ark Royal back into service and still has HMS Illustrious. Even if the Argentine Mirages could get past the UK's type 45 destroyers, which is unlikely because the type 45 is considered the best air defence class destroyer in the world, they would still have to contend with an upgraded version of the harriers that spanked them in the last war.

Any Argentine Naval operations would have to somehow get passed the UK submarine fleet.

And this is all under the assumption that the Typhoons stationed at Mount Pleasant somehow fell from the sky instead of flying circles round any Mirage attacks or sinking any Argentine naval ingression.

And as for ground operations? It's not even funny how badly the Argentine troops would fare against the now Afghan and Iraq battle-hardened UK paratroop and royal marine regiments.

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The result of the last conflict was not as clear cut as you suggest. The UK military were severely stretched last time around and given the changes in defence spending a repeat operation might not be possible.

The main point is that I think the wind of change is blowing against the UK on this one. It will take a concerted effort to counter the diplomatic push by Argentina and it is not clear that the politicians, despite the obvious emotive issues surrounding the territory both in the UK and in the Falklands, have a clear long term plan.

Update: Look to the recent conflict in Libya as a guide. The UK had considerable difficulty mounting an operation at Europe's back door. At a distance of 8,000+ miles the problems are multiplied many times over.

The diplomatic push may work, but the military arguments are erroneous. I anything the balance of power is far more slanted against Argentina whose military is pretty much in tatters right now (I heard an estimate on NPR that they can barely get six aircraft off the ground).

"In 2001, the Argentine economy effectively imploded due to the collapse of the Argentine peso. The Argentine military proved incapable of surviving the negative aftershocks of a then broken policy of defending the peso at all costs. Since then, the military’s annual budget sank becoming a fraction of what it was in the past. Salaries were cut throughout the ranks. The size of the armed forces not only had to be reduced, but in many cases equipment had to be sold on the black market in order for military units to meet their daily expenses. According to Military Technology, the current strength of the Argentine military is about 68,000 troops."

http://www.coha.org/honor-shame-and-duty-the-reality-of-arge...

There's still a lot of Argentineans that were trained during the times of obligatory military service.

They'll probably still be very badly trained in comparison to the UK soldiers, but saying Argentina can only field 68,000 troops is incorrect.

That said, I'm pretty certain Argentina would lose an eventual war with the UK over the Falklands/Malvinas.

I'm annoyed at Cristina Kirchner's "bread and circuses" strategy with regards to this, diverting attention from the economic disaster that is brewing (and which will strongly affect us here in Uruguay).

There's a lot of hate in your lite. Looks like you know nothing about economy or history. Stop talking about war and read a book, because all the stuff you said is nonsense and all your theories are wrong mate. There's democracy in Argentina since 1983. And when there's democracy problems get solved by diplomats, not soldiers.

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