The Falklands Conflict 14 June

Carl Phillip Gottlieb von Clausewitz famously wrote, in his book ‘Vom Kriege’ (On War), first published in 1832: "War is merely the continuation of policy by other means,". This statement is considered to have had a strong influence on military thinking in many subsequent wars including WWI, WWII, and all post Vietnam US military operations. However, Clausewitz didn’t have it completely correct - sometimes a lack of policy has more to do with it. Take, for example the Falklands War which illustrates what a lack of policy, a splash of political miscalculation and murmur of miscommunication can do to create a shooting war. In the period before the war, both sides had political eyes fixed firmly on domestic issues - Argentina on maintaining the position of its military government in the face of rising public hostility and Britain, as usual, on cutting costs and, at that time, biffing the unions. Consequently both sides seriously underestimated the importance of the Falkland Islands to the other. Whatever the reasons. this ‘mere continuation of policy’ cost the UK 255 good men, six ships (10 others were very badly damaged), thirty-four aircraft, and more than 1.6 billion pounds. Old Carl Phillip didn’t say too much about chance in his book, but it is not too difficult to envisage that the war could have ended in an Argentine victory. What if, for example, one of the Exocets had hit one of our two aircraft carriers, or what if the frequent unexploded bombs had actually detonated when they hit some of our ships (staggeringly, even with useless bombs, 75% of the British task force was damaged or sunk)? What if Argentina had decided to attack the British artillery, using the three paratroop regiments already deployed at Comodoro Rivadavia? What if the Argentines had made better preparations to hold the islands? But then, who would expect that the British to attempt to carry out a war 7500 miles from home? But, as it turned out, chance was with the British and on June 14 1982 the commander of the Argentine garrison in Port Stanley, Mario Menendez, surrendered to Major General JJ Moore of the Royal Marines.