Falklands War

[TurnandBurn55]

Absolutely... there was enough misunderstanding to go around.

Obviously when push comes to shove, the choice supporting Britain or Argentina was no choice at all. BUT Reagan realized that Galtieri (a right-wing buddy of ours, to boot) was playing this off as an anti-Imperialist move. So come down too hard on him, we lose credibility in the Third World-- and we were trying hard to regain lost ground after the 1970s.

So we tried to toe the line... figuring, like you said, that he was bluffing... and that the Brits could push those guys around without too much trouble. As it turns out a lot more Brits died than anyone counted on... but hindsight is 20/20...

 

[East]

Figure following:

If Puerto Rico or Hawaii would be threatened by any kind of agressor, in my opinion the US should get all the support of their Allies, who are or not embedded in NATO. Dutch military personnell is on exchange basis stationed at US Forces worldwide and are an integral part of their command. They fulfill keyfuctions to smoothen operations between nations in joint ops, and can't be replaced easily.

During the Falkland war the UK/NL Marine Amphibious Taskforce consisted of British and Netherlands Marines as an integrated team. The Dutch were relieved from their command when their brethern went for war and had to watch from the sideline.

In the recent Kosovo crisis Dutch Air Force aviators manned the AH-64's together with the US Army, the signal that went out to the world in that kind of joint ops is more worth than the actual sorties flown by the Dutch under US command.

That is how I think how an Allie should be...you're one, or not at all!

 

[Fly Navy]

nkawtg, I know you're not from the States... but Hawaii is a STATE of the United States of America. Attack Hawaii is no different than attacking Washington. Puerto Rico is just a commonwealth.

 

[nittany03]

That is how I think how an Allie should be...you're one, or not at all!

Just remember, nations have no permanent allies . . . only permanent interests.

 

[East]

nkawtg, I know you're not from the States... but Hawaii is a STATE of the United States of America. Attack Hawaii is no different than attacking Washington. Puerto Rico is just a commonwealth.

The Falklands are a part of the United Kingdom, just like Scotland in your example mentioning Washington. Because the Falklands are so far away from UK mainland, I named Puerto Rico as well as an example. The status of the Island is that it is UK territory, but because it's so far out at sea it is a little bit considered as a commonwealth as well. The truth is that the Union Jack is their official Flag iso the Flags of Australia and/or New Zealand.

Comparable, but different. UK territory though...

 

[Flash]

Does anyone know by chance where the rest of the "Allies" were during this conflict. The UK faced this all themselves, without any help of NATO while the Malvinas was/is still part of the United Kingdom...

A little help would saved a lot of British lives on a taskforce so far away. It's sad that political decisions always end up with loss of lives in the military during an armed conflict. The Brits were in the '90s Gulfwar, they are in Aghanistan and Iraq as we speak. If the NATO would have been more assertive towards Argentina, probably there was no military life lost at all on both sides. I'm not speaking for "political lives" for members of the "Junta".

The British did it on their own, although the country almost got bankrupt due to this conflict. A reaction towards NATO, in line with the French, would be understandable, but no, they're still one of the Americans loyal allies.

The cold hard truth is that the US viewed this as a conflict over a colony between two of our allies. While the Falklands is part of the UK, their ownership is still disputed, no one disputes our sovereignty over Puerto Rico. The conflict came only a few years after a long period of decolonization around the world and while many were sympathetic to the UK,not everyone was. It was actually a suprise to many that the UK actually went to war over it, Galtieri and others were half expecting the Prits to jsut give the islands up. No one made any noise about Goa being invaded by India in 1961 when it was Portugese colony http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/G/Goa.asp .

As for assistance, we backed the Brits and said so publicly after we tried to broker an agreement between the two sides. We also said we would replenish NATO stocks of AIM-9L Sidewinders that the UK dipped into to supply their Harriers. Otherwise, the Brits would not have had the latest heat-seekers that could be fired at the bad guys head on. We also withdrew all military support to the Argentines. This included spare parts for their US made planes (this included the P-2's that found the HMS Sheffield, and were grounded shortly thereafter due to lack of parts) and almost all advisors. We definitely could have helped the Argentines figure out why a lot of their bombs were not going off, a fact still resented by many of them.

The simple fact is that we assisted the Brits as much as we could have, a fact still appreciated by the Brits. Plus, like TurnandBurn said, who knows what really went on behind the scenes . That we supported them in defending a 'colony' broke with longstanding US policy not to support the Europeans maintain their colonies (think of the Revolutionary War). Nkawtg's point about exchange guys is moot, several countries did not allow their exchange officers fight with their US units in OIF (Canada comes to mind, they have a sizable presence in the E-3 AWACS community). This is standard practice with exchange officers, we would not allow an exchange pilot fly strikes from the Charles DeGualle on the Ivory Coast (and yes, we have guys flying French Navy planes and helos).

 

[Fly Navy]

The Falklands are a part of the United Kingdom, just like Scotland in your example mentioning Washington. Because the Falklands are so far away from UK mainland, I named Puerto Rico as well as an example. The status of the Island is that it is UK territory, but because it's so far out at sea it is a little bit considered as a commonwealth as well. The truth is that the Union Jack is their official Flag iso the Flags of Australia and/or New Zealand.

Comparable, but different. UK territory though...

I still maintain that a territory and a state are very different.