The Falklands War

Abstract

The 1982 Falklands War had a decisive outcome, that is the restoration of British control over the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, but failed to end the long-running Anglo-Argentine dispute about the Falklands/Malvinas issue. The fundamental sovereignty problem remains today, as evidenced by Argentina's occasional withdrawal of overflying rights for flights between Chile and the Falklands. Although the Falklands/Malvinas question has now returned to the margins of international affairs, the 1982 war continues to attract the interest of historians, as highlighted by the recent publication of D. George Boyce's The Falklands War and Sir Lawrence Freedman's two-volume The Official History of the Falklands Campaign (2005) (rev. supra, 260–4). Moreover, in 2005 the new FOI provisions yielded additional evidence, most notably the release of the logbook of HMS Conqueror (The Times, 10 Oct. 2005), the submarine responsible for sinking the Belgrano. Undoubtedly, the war's twenty-fifth anniversary in 2007 will prompt even more publications. Drawing upon a wide range of sources, including Argentine publications, Boyce provides a useful synthesis of the secondary literature with particular reference to the interaction between war and diplomacy. Readers are offered by way of background a clear view of pre-war developments, including the fundamental sovereignty issue, the clash between popular and territorial sovereignty, and the complications arising from the ‘immobilism’ of the Falkland islanders. Inevitably, the ‘mistakes and inconsistencies’ of British policymakers figure prominently; thus they are accused of not only failing to balance the demands of defence and deterrence but also giving the wrong signals to an increasingly impatient Argentine military regime beset by escalating domestic unrest. Intelligence inadequacies represent a major part of what Boyce describes as Britain's pre-war ‘failure of the imagination’. Regarding the 74-day war itself, Boyce's account is adequate, even if the text glosses over episodes—these include the presence of SAS forces in Chile (May) by way of preparing for action against Rio Grande airfield across the border in Argentina—warranting fuller coverage. Of course, as Boyce points out, the sinking of the General Belgrano, a heavily armoured cruiser, was, and remains, ‘the most controversial action of the whole Falklands War’ (p. 104), given the allegations of Arthur Gavshon and Desmond Rice (The Sinking of the Belgrano, 1984), among others, that HMS Conqueror's attack was intended largely to torpedo Peruvian-inspired peace initiatives. Boyce, whose conclusions are echoed by Freedman's official history (Freedman, Vol. II, 736–46), dismisses such claims (pp. 101–09), while acknowledging the complications resulting from the government's inaccurate reporting of events. Inevitably, several sections of the book would benefit from updating to take account of both Freedman's privileged access to closed public records and recent FOI revelations. For example, whereas Boyce writes that the battle of Goose Green ‘seems’ to be a ‘classic example of political demands forcing the military pace’ (p. 126), Freedman felt able to be far more definite in stressing its political motivation, that is to meet the desire of politicians to show that British forces still held the military initiative (Freedman, Vol. II, 555–6, 577). Nevertheless, Boyce's book compares favourably with Freedman's official history in terms of its coverage of the myriad faces of the conflict, particularly the way in which the artistic, literary and photographic representations of war signalled a strong sense of ‘public and political commitment’ (p. 190). Taking advantage of the broader historical perspective, Boyce offers useful insights into Thatcher's Britain, while urging readers to appreciate that this small war, though easily dismissed as both a military anomaly and an imperial irrelevance, possessed important consequences for both Britain's role in the world and the conduct of war. Even so, Boyce could contribute more to the emerging reappraisal of the war's military significance. In 1982 the Falklands War, characterised as demonstrating more traditional military features, was overshadowed by a Cold War underpinned by nuclear weapons. As Freedman argues on the closing page of his official history, however, perhaps this 1982 conflict should be viewed rather as ‘one of the first of the coming post cold-war era’ (Freedman, Vol. II, 747). Generally speaking, Boyce's history offers a clear and concise text for students likely to be deterred by the 1,100-page official history. For this reason, occasional factual errors are to be regretted. For example, the British plan to recapture South Georgia was code-named ‘Operation Paraquat’, not ‘Operation Parquet’ (pp. 87, 98)! Nor will readers be helped by the repeated misspelling of the names of, say, the American Secretary of Defense (Caspar Weinberger) or Virginia Gamba-Stonehouse, Freedman's Argentine collaborator for Signals of War (1990).