This Article is intended to demonstrate that The Falklands War was a display of both political and military miscalculations that ultimately lead to war, and to explain the political, strategic and military lessons that can be learned from this conflict.
Causes of the War
The popularity of the Argentine military dictatorship, during which thousands of people were murdered or disappeared, had fallen dramatically in its sixth year, 1982. The succession of power at the top – from General Jorge Videla to General Roberto Viola and now General Leopoldo Galtieri – had not produced the hoped-for results, and many in the government hoped the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands would be their lifesaver.
Argentina's economy was also performing poorly during this time. Unemployment was soaring, gross domestic product (GDP) was shrinking by almost 6 percent per year and inflation was around 160 percent.
For a country that almost single-handedly supplied the Allied forces with grain during World War II, this was a major catastrophe.
Politically, the junta's worst nightmare was unfolding. The labor unions were joining forces with "Las Madres de Mayo," an organization representing relatives of the political prisoners and disappeared. This alliance meant that the enormous Argentine middle class was uniting against the government.
For Argentina, the Falkland Islands or Islas Malvinas, have always been a focus of national unity. Bringing them under Argentine rule is, even today, an important goal for most Argentineans. Thus, the government saw them as a primary means of regaining popularity.
The Conflict
Argentine troops "take back" the Falklands
The conflict was the result of a series of miscalculations. The first error in judgment was made by the British. In September 1979, Argentine businessman Constantino Davidoff purchased a former whale slaughterhouse in the South Georgia Islands from Christian Salvensen, an English businessman from Edinburgh. The South Georgia Islands are a group of islands southeast of the Falklands. Davidoff planned to dismantle the slaughterhouse and sell it as scrap metal.
Davidoff asked British authorities for the use of the HMS Endurance to haul the metal away. His request was denied. Two years later, he informed the British Foreign Office of his intentions to work in the South Georgia Islands, hinting that he would use an Argentine Navy vessel instead.
Davidoff hired 41 Argentine workers and left for the South Georgias in March 1982 on the "Bahía Buen Suceso," a ship belonging to the Argentine Navy.
Soon after he arrived, residents of the South Georgias complained to the British governor in the Falklands about an Argentine flag Davidoff's workers were displaying near their work site. In response, the Foreign Office sent the HMS Endurance to take down the flag and prevent the disembarkation of Argentine military personnel on the Islands.
In reaction, on March 23, the Argentine government sent the Navy transport "Bahía Paraíso" to the South Georgias in an attempt to occupy them peacefully.
The Argentine President, Army General Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri, and his high command had been planning an invasion of the Falklands Islands since he became leader of the junta in December 1981. Galtieri wanted to force a quick negotiation with the United Kingdom over the sovereignty of the Islands and he had strong reasons for using military means to achieve his goal.
By the early 1980s, international opinion leaned toward the dismantling of old empires, which the British possession of the Falklands and South Georgias represented. But Argentina's position and negotiations in the regular circles – the United Nations and international courts – had not advanced after 150 years of English occupation.
As head of the ruling Argentine junta, General Galtieri had a very specific goal in mind: to save his government. Forcing negotiations over the Falklands was a gamble, and it was up to the British to call his bluff.
At first sight, it seems hard to believe that a developing nation like Argentina could successfully challenge a world power like the United Kingdom. But there were several reasons why Argentina was confident that it could deter an English response and force the United Kingdom to recognize Argentine sovereignty over the Islands without a military confrontation.
But did Argentina's strategy fit its fighting capabilities? Many who have written about the war believe that the British underestimated Argentine military power.
At the time, Argentina had a sizable Navy with surface, air and underwater capabilities. She had at least six ships fitted with Exocet sea-skimming missiles, also the principal surface weapon of the Royal Navy. She had four submarines, two of them formidably difficult to detect with sonar.
Argentine aircraft Etendard
Argentina also had an impressive air force with more than 220 airplanes and missiles, despite the U.S. arms embargo. This air power consisted of 79 American-made A-4 Skyhawks, 21 French-made Breguet-Dassault Mirage IIIs, five Super-Etendards from the same maker, and 26 Neshers and Daggers, the Israeli version of the Mirage III. It also had a large number of Argentine-made IA-58 Pucarás, designed for counterinsurgency measures.
In its own military conflicts, Israel had shown that the Mirage III, in both its French and Israeli versions, was a much better fighter than the Soviet-made Mig-21. Thus, Argentina's force included planes regarded as the finest dogfighters in the world. Both the Mirage and the Super-Etendard were capable of reaching speeds close to Mach 2, which gave them a great advantage over their only potential rivals, the vertical/short take-off and landing (V/STOL) Harrier GR-3 and its naval version, the Sea-Harrier. Both of these English airplanes were subsonic and, at least on paper, were inferior to the Argentine planes as fighter planes. Originally designed as a troop support airplane, the Harrier lacked supersonic capabilities.
Among other Argentine advantages were its pilots, who were very well trained. Some had been trained in Israel, and were famous for their bravery. Their skills were confirmed later by their English counterparts.
Argentina also held a distinct geographic advantage. The Islands were reachable from continental air bases, just 400 miles away, whereas Great Britain was more than 8,000 miles away. That presented a greater financial burden for Great Britain, also suffering from an economic recession.
Also helping the Argentine cause was a firm belief in what the country was fighting for. For Argentina, the war for "Las Malvinas Argentinas," was a "just war." As Earl H. Tilford, Jr. writes in Air Power Lessons, a chapter from Military Lessons of the Falkland Islands War, "Napoleon Bonaparte noted that in war the moral is to the physical as three to one."
The Argentine generals had also been following with interest the changing military balance in Europe. Because of the recession, England was embarking on an extensive demilitarization plan that affected all of its military branches. But the plan had the most drastic effect on the Navy.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had reduced Great Britain's role to that of a back-up member to the U.S. in that major military alliance. In the late 1970s, England's participation in NATO consisted of a mostly "ballistic-missile" role. The United Kingdom had gotten rid of full-size carriers, leaving it with only a couple of light carriers designed to base the (V/STOL) Sea-Harriers.
The English forces also planned to replace their long-range strategic bombers, called Vulcans, with the multinational-made, short-range Panavia Tornado, in late 1982. That would leave the long-range work to the strategic missiles.
Great Britain's military had had little recent experience overseas. Its forces were trained to defend the British Isles. Most of the military's 700 airplanes were either committed to NATO operations or were designed to fight in Europe and be supplied from a base close by. Its lack of major carriers disqualified Britain from operating in the South Atlantic.
Although the United States was England's closest ally, Argentina was counting on the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (Rio Treaty), signed in 1947, to provide it with U.S. support. Article 3.1 of the treaty established cooperation between all American nations in the event of foreign aggression.
Given this scenario, it seemed fairly reasonable to assume that the Argentine strategy was sound. Argentina's original plan was to invade the Falkland and the South Georgia Islands sometime between the months of July and October 1982, for several reasons:
1) To arrive before the 150th anniversary of British seizure of the Islands, to be celebrated in March 1983. Argentina hoped to thus avoid a burst of English nationalism.
2) July through October are the winter months in the Southern Hemisphere, which Argentina hoped would hurt Britain's ability to respond quickly.
3) By June, the junta assumed, the English government would have retired the HMS Endurance, the only military vessel protecting the Islands. The British, as the Argentineans had hoped, misinterpreted the situation, as Max Hastings wrote in The Battle for the Falklands: "Messages warning of increased Argentine pugnacity sent to the defence ministry by Captain Barker of Endurance were being discounted as part of his campaign to save his ship from withdrawal."
4) And finally, by that time the Argentine Navy would have received a large number of weapons it had previously purchased from France. A military embargo imposed by the Carter administration in 1978 had made Argentina ineligible to renovate and supply its Skyhawks. The French shipment would bring more Super-Etendards and air-to-surface AM-39 Exocet missiles, the newest version of the ship-launched MM-38 Exocet. This weapon's main characteristic is that after launching, it drops to a flight altitude of six feet above water to avoid detection and flies at a speed close to Mach 1. On top of that, the air-to-surface version had a reach of 35 miles, in comparison to the 20-to-26-mile range the older missile had. In April 1982, Argentina had only five of these missiles; by June, it hoped to have several more.
Unfortunately for Argentina, the chaos of its internal political situation forced it to move up its plans of invasion. In late March, protests against the government were growing to alarming levels for the junta, which decided to use the skirmish developing between Davidoff's scrap metal workers and the HMS Endurance in the South Georgias as an excuse for military intervention. This is evident in the conversation between President Galtieri and U.S. President Ronald Reagan on the evening before the military invasion. Galtieri said, "Great Britain has threatened Argentine citizens that were legally working in the South Georgias and my government's duty is to protect them." But by the time Reagan spoke to Galtieri, Argentine ships were already on their way to the Falklands and the invasion began on April 2, 1982.
By moving ahead with the invasion months before originally planned, Argentina was giving up on its strategy. This precipitation of its plans proved to be Argentina's worst mistake, which ultimately cost it the war.
Without rough winter weather to deal with, British airplanes were able to support the disembarkation of troops in the Islands. Because the British were able to land, the 10,000 Argentine troops had a hard time dealing with both land and air attacks.
Argentina's change in plans also forced the military to overlook several important logistic points. First, the Argentine armed forces were not prepared for battle. Reserves had not yet been called on duty, new recruits were supposed to start training later that month, and professional personnel had not been trained for war.
Nor were the Argentine Navy's cargoes ready to start shipping supplies to the Islands. This was a key point, because Port Stanley's airport – the Falklands' major airfield – was not big enough to serve as a base for Argentina's main fighters: Mirages, Skyhawks and Super-Etendards. The Argentineans had aluminum to expand the runway, but due to the alteration of the original plan, they did not have a vessel large enough to ship it to the Islands in the subsequent days.
HMS Spartan
When an Argentine ship finally became available, the HMS Spartan, a British submarine, was already guarding the 200 miles of "total exclusion zone" imposed by England. This limited the flexibility and scope of operations of the Argentine Air Force since the Islands were at the outer range of their reach from the continental air bases. That left the airplanes without enough fuel to sustain fighting and it was impossible for them to make use of their afterburners. Thus, Argentine pilots were unable to face British airplanes in dogfights or take advantage of their speed superiority. This was confirmed by the the final statistics at the end of the war. The fast Argentine airplanes had not taken down a single English airplane. Instead, the five Harriers and Sea-Harriers lost were shot down by the effective Argentine anti-aircraft systems.
Highlights of the War
Before dawn on the morning of April 2, 1982, Argentine commandos took over the barracks of the English Marines near Port Stanley in East Falkland. They were soon joined by the rest of the invading forces coming by air and sea. By the end of the day, Falklands' Governor Rex Hunt surrendered and the commander of the invasion force, Major General Mario Benjamin Menéndez, was named governor of "Las Islas Malvinas."
That day, there were no deaths among British civilians and military personnel, a result that fit well with the Argentineans' plans. However, Argentina did suffer five casualties, among them a captain.
The invasion forces of the South Georgias did find more resistance near Grytviken, the only town of the Islands. The Argentine frigate Guerrico had to shell the English positions to force their surrender. One British Marine and four Argentine sailors were killed.
On April 12, a 200-nautical mile maritime exclusion zone went into effect around the Falkland Islands. The British government said at the time that a submarine was already in the area to enforce this exclusion zone.
The first confrontation between Argentine forces and the English Task Force occured on April 25, off the coast of Grytviken in the South Georgias. Santa Fe, an Argentine submarine, was put out of commission by Wessex Wasp and Lynx British helicopters. The very next day, Captain Astiz of the Argentine Navy surrendered his troops in the South Georgias. The British Task Force was then free to concentrate in the recovery of the Falkland Islands.
On May 1, the first fighting over the Falklands occurred. A British Vulcan bomber took off from Wideawake airfield on the Ascensions, a group of Islands off the coasts of Africa, and flew for more than nine hours toward its target, Port Stanley. It dropped 21 1,000-pound bombs over the airfield. This operation, named "Black Buck," was not very cost-effective – only one bomb hit the runway – but it was designed to send a message to the government and population of Buenos Aires. It had been the longest non-stop military flight in history and the British wanted the people of Argentina to know that they had the necessary means to bomb the continent, if they wanted.
The Argentine cruiser
General Belgrano sinks
On the afternoon of May 4, the 4,400-ton nuclear attack submarine HMS Conqueror fired Mark VIII torpedoes against the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano, sinking it in 40 minutes. The Belgrano was, depending on the source, between 35 miles and 50 miles southwest of the exclusion zone, which was why the attack was considered an English violation of war statutes. More than 360 members of the Belgrano's crew died. The sinking of the Belgrano had the desired effect by the British, which was to keep the Argentine Navy outside the conflict.
Everything was looking good for the English. They had bombed Port Stanley, attacked several vessels successfully (including the Belgrano), all of its weapons systems had worked perfectly, and had not had one casualty due to enemy fire. But everything changed on May 4 when the HMS Sheffield was hit by an AM-39 Exocet missile launched by an Argentine Super-Etendard. After fighting the fire for more than five hours, the ship was abandoned and sank six days later when being towed. A total of 20 crewmen died and 24 were injured.
For the next 17 days, British ships alternated shelling off Port Stanley. Other areas of the Islands, where Argentine military installations were located, were targets for British commando attacks that destroyed 11 parked Argentinean aircraft, radar installations and ammunition dumps. English helicopters and fixed-wing aircrafts also sank three transports and damaged two more during that time. Around 10 British airplanes and helicopters were lost due to bad weather in this period prior to the British invasion by land.
British troops landed on the Falklands on 21 May 1982. From their beachhead in San Carlos they fought and marched their way across the islands, reaching the capital Stanley on 14 June. The key battlegrounds and landmarks are marked above.
The British decided to initiate their land assault on May 21 in Port San Carlos, a bay located between both Falklands. This incursion was preceded by a series of raids on Port Louis, Fox Bay and Goose Green designed to distract the attention of the Argentines from where the real invasion was going to take place.
The commandos overwhelmed the 50 Argentine soldiers stationed in the area. Sea King helicopters started shipping weapons, supplies and ammunitions to the beachhead once the surrounding hills had been secured by British troops.
Once the Argentines found out what the real invasion plan was, they began a major air offensive against the English vessels and troops in the disembarking area. More than 72 sorties delivered lethal strikes to the HMS Ardent and the HMS Argonaut. The HMS Antrim, Brilliant and Broadsword were also hit, but the bombs didn't detonate, which was a common defect of Argentina's ammunition throughout the war, as Lawrence Germain wrote in A Diary of the Falklands Conflict, "One report stated that overall only 20 percent of the Argentine bombs exploded."
By the end of the day, the Argentines had lost nine Mirages, five Skyhawks, two Pucarás and four helicopters, while the English only lost a Harrier to anti-aircraft fire.
The British established a solid beachhead with more than 520 troops and almost a million pounds of armament, ammunition and supplies. A day later, the number of English personnel in the area was higher than 5,000.
A couple of days later, the HMS Antelope was bombed and sunk by Argentine aircraft. During this attack, the HMS Sir Galahad and the HMS Sir Lancelot were also hit. Only the first one had to be abandoned. Eight Argentine aircraft were downed that day by Harriers. In that battle, the anti-aircraft Sea-Wolf missile proved to be ineffective against the skilled Argentine pilots.
That action preceded the biggest strike against the disembarking task on May 25, Argentinean independence day. Having detected the movement of large ships off the north coast of East Falkland Island, the Argentines sent an expedition of two Super-Etendards, each with one AM-39 Exocet missile. One of the rockets destroyed the HMS Atlantic Conveyor, a big cargo that was carrying 10 helicopters and large amounts of supplies for the land forces. The loss of all this equipment caused Brigadier Julian Thompson, an Army general in charge of the land disembarkation, to ask London for instructions. Major General Richard Trent of the same branch confirmed the orders to continue with the invasion plan despite the loss of the valuable material.
During the same attack, Argentine Skyhawks bombed the Atlantic Conveyor's escort, the HMS Coventry, which sank within 20 minutes; 20 sailors were lost. The HMS Broadsword and the HMS Brilliant were also hit, but they were spared because the bombs, once again, had failed to explode.
May 28 marked the beginning of the land campaign. Four hundred and fifty British troops moved south in direction to Goose Green where 1,800 Argentine soldiers were waiting for them. Air support provided by Harriers and helicopters and the shelling from the HMS Antrim proved to be extremely effective in such a lopsided battle, at least in numbers.
From May 30 to June 7, British special commando units advanced through the north side of East Falkland all the way to Mount Kent and Mount Challenger and captured both of them. These two key strategic points were vital to gain access to Port Stanley, which was only 10 miles from the hills. At the same time, three different batallions were landed by helicopters from the HMS Intrepid in the isolated areas of Fitzroy and Bluff Cove. The British had now more than 8,000 troops in the Islands. The idea was to converge with the troops coming from the north in an offensive tactic known as "tongs."
On the afternoon of June 8, Scots Guards and Welsh Guards were being taken to Bluff Cove by the HMS Sir Galahad and the HMS Sir Tristram when they were attacked by two Mirages and two Skyhawks, killing 51 British soldiers and injuring 46 more. At the same time, the HMS Plymouth was attacked by five Mirages and was hit by four bombs, but none exploded. A total of seven Argentine aircraft had been shot down in both expeditions.
From June 8 to June 11, English Navy ships and the Army units located on Mount Kent and Mount Challenger shelled Argentine positions in Port Stanley.
Finally, on June 12, the British initiated a decisive attack over Port Stanley. A parachute batallion, with the aid of heavy bombardment from the HMS Avenger, captured Mount Longdon five miles from Port Stanley. Meanwhile, the HMS Yarmouth shelled Argentine positions four miles south at Mount Harriet and Goat Ridge where the Argentines were fighting a British command unit. Argentina finally surrendered those posts.
Between those two locations, another English Army unit was fighting for the possession of the Two Sisters range, with help from the HMS Glamorgan, which like the other British ships, was a few miles west of Port Stanley. A land-launched Exocet hit the HMS Glamorgan and 13 soldiers died. Although the attempts to intercept the missile with a Sea Cat anti-missile failed, the ship remained operational.
Victory flag is raised over Port Stanley
The final offensive took place before dawn on June 14. A British parachute regiment took Wireless ridge, which was guarded by a 155mm piece of artillery. That forced the British to use Scimitar and Scorpion tanks to support the attack. The last Argentine posts at Tumbledown Mountain, Sapper Hill and Mount Williams were finally defeated after six hours of fighting with batallions of Scots Guards and Welsh Guards as well by Gurkhas, Nepalese mercenaries brought in by the British.
That afternoon, General Menéndez, ignoring orders from Buenos Aires to gather all the remaining forces and go into a suicidal counter-attack, surrendered unconditionally to Major General Moore, bringing the conflict to an end
Outcomes of the Falklands War
Military Lessons
Argentina hoped that its invasion of the Falklands would not provoke a military response from England, and would force England to recognize Argentine sovereignty over the Islands. But Argentina's decision to invade more than three months before planned eliminated any chance of that. This is because the change in plans left Argentineans without their defensive strategy, and forced them to perform an unrehearsed set of tactics that had no specific strategy other than to try to inflict as much damage to the British fleet as possible.
The Argentinean Air Force had to face, by itself, a well prepared and three-dimensional British Task Force from air, land and sea. The 10,000 Argentinean soldiers assigned to protect the Falklands were an insufficient force to face the British. Whether Galtieri did not have the means to reinforce the troops or he did not want to risk unnecessary losses for a lost cause is not clear. There are many reasons to think the latter was the real reason. First, most of the troops in the Islands were young recruits with little preparation. Second, Argentina was in the midst of an arms race because of borderline conflicts with Chile. And last, Galtieri's lack of confidence in the Navy, and/or his unwillingness to risk huge losses in that branch of the armed forces, may have also played a part. The final result may not have been totally due to Argentina's mistakes. The British forces proved to be more than Argentina expected, and made many decisions that in the long run proved to be the right ones.
According to an F-14 Tomcat pilot, Lieutenant Commander Ding Thien Bui of the U.S. Navy, neither the Harrier GR3 and the Sea-Harrier could match the faster Argentine Mirage IIIs and A-4 Skyhawks. However, the British airplanes had some remarkable design and weaponry characteristics that were key to their success.
Their vertical landing and take-off abilities eliminate the need for flaps and movable parts under their wings, allowing them to carry more weapons and external fuel tanks. They were also equipped with AIM-9L Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. This latest version of the popular heat-seeking rocket had an "all aspect" attack capability, which means that the pilot did not need to get in the enemy's tail and could shoot at approaching targets.
That made it possible for the Harriers to shoot down 20 aircraft, with another three also likely destroyed as well. Of the five Harriers that went down, none were lost in air combat.
The British anti-aircraft systems came up with some impressive numbers as well. The British missiles, including the Sea Dart, Sea Wolf, Sea Cat, and Rapier SAM, accounted for 35 confirmed and 14 probable kills, while anti-aircraft guns and small weapons accounted for seven confirmed kills and one probable.
Although the Argentine invasion came as a surprise to the British government, it encountered well-trained troops. NATO required that its members maintain a level of "readiness," which means having pilots, and soldiers in general, constantly trained. English pilots, in particular, had to be trained in both Europe and the U.S.
Some conventional military concepts were proven in this conflict. For example, unless a breakthrough technology is introduced, defense will always be superior to offense. Although Argentina's use of the AM-39 Exocet caught the British by surprise, it was not, by itself, a decisive enough innovation to change the final result of the war.
The courageous and well trained Argentine pilots earned the respect and admiration of military experts around the world. But as Earl H. Tilford Jr. wrote, "However, as demonstrated in countless encounters between colonial powers and colonial forces [...] courage and valor are no match for superior weaponry effectively employed."
Miscalculations
Both sides made many other miscalculations leading up to the war. The British should have established a more permanent military presence in the Falklands. There was even more reason to do this after Argentina's democratic government was ousted in a military coup in 1976.
Later, the decision of the English government to retire the HMS Endurance was misinterpreted by Buenos Aires as the lack of interest in the Falkland Islands.
Galtieri's arrogance was clear from the very beginning, when in a statement on TV he said that a country governed by two women – Queen Elizabeth and Margaret Thatcher – was not going to be very willing to sacrifice its children in a war. That reflected Argentina's biggest miscalculation: the underestimation of the British will to defend the Islands.
Political Effects
Although the war cost England 255 men, six ships (10 others were very badly damaged), nine Harriers and Sea Harriers (four of which went down in accidents), and more than 1.6 billion pounds, the Falklands campaign was considered a great victory for the United Kingdom.
The Tory government of Margaret Thatcher was reelected the following year by a landslide. Even though the national economy was by then starting to recover from the recession, this change in the public opinion became known as the Falklands factor.
On the other hand, the Argentinean military government was ousted after mounting protests by human rights and war veterans groups. Elections were held in October 1983 and Raúl Alfonsín, the Radical Civic Union (UCR) party candidate, took office on January 30, 1984. Alfonsin defeated Italo Luder, the candidate for the Justicialist Party (JP), also known as the Peronist movement, which is currently the governing party in Argentina.
It took Argentina more than 10 years to recover, at least partially, from the economic chaos in which it was submerged by the military regime. But worse than that is the effect the war had on negotiations for returning the Falkland Islands to Argentina. If the negotiations were at a slow pace before the war, now there is very little chance to even get to the negotiating table.
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