40 Years after the Falklands War. Were the Argentine Armed Forces Able to Win?

Abstract

Next year will mark the fortieth anniversary of the Falklands War in which the regular Armed Forces of Argentina and the United Kingdom of Great Britain fought. Almost four decades later, this article attempts to speculate whether the scenario of the armed conflict in the South Atlantic could have been favorable to Argentine arms, given that there is sufficient evidence of a different outcome of this international armed conflict in which the Argentine Armed Forces could have been victorious. This article gathers several findings of a collective effort of unpublished character still unfinished, which approaches the armed conflict from the political-strategic and strategic-military perspectives. This article gathers several findings of a collective effort not yet published or completed, which approaches the armed conflict from the political-strategic and strategic-military perspectives. Finally, it concludes that although the fate of arms could have favored the Argentine military instrument, the conditions imposed by the context of the Cold War and the strong leadership of the then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher, make it difficult to imagine a different outcome than the one that occurred.