If Thatcher didn't even try to retake the islands Michael Foot would beat her over the head with it until he won the election.ATL Convince the British that re-taking the Falkland Islands would be too expensive.
OTL We were all surprised when the Royal Navy sailed south.
While military prosecutors did ask for death penalty against Galtieri for the crime of "incompetence in conducting a war" (yes, a real crime, part of the early 20th century Argentine military code which was based on the old 19th Prussian code or something), the sentence ended up as ten years in jail. The rest of the members of the Juntas were put on trial under the regular criminal code and that didn't allow for death penalty, which was outlawed in Argentina (except for the military code) with the 1921 criminal code.By not invading. The Thatcher government was going to do a deal with the Argentinian government about a power share and eventual transfer of sovereignty.
This leads to the problem for the Junta that they can't use the Malvinas as a rallying point to divert attention from the crappy economy. They get overthrown and suffer 9mm lead poisoning.
if the USA supported Argentina (the aggressor) over their NATO ally the UK, it would have been a politically damaging and could have seen the collapse of NATO.A more direct support of the regime by the USA. It was already propped up by them, and so the USA should continue to build the buttresses to hold it up.
if the USA supported Argentina (the aggressor) over their NATO ally the UK, it would have been a politically damaging and could have seen the collapse of NATO.
Would he? My understanding is that most people, even some within the cabinet, didn't think that retaking the islands immediately was a good idea. As has been said, the counter attack was a surprise to many when it happened, so I don't think that many people, other than the hardliners in the Tory Party, would blame Thatcher for not sending in the troops if she decided. not to do so.If Thatcher didn't even try to retake the islands Michael Foot would beat her over the head with it until he won the election.
A more direct support of the regime by the USA. It was already propped up by them, and so the USA should continue to build the buttresses to hold it up.
Would he? My understanding is that most people, even some within the cabinet, didn't think that retaking the islands immediately was a good idea. As has been said, the counter attack was a surprise to many when it happened, so I don't think that many people, other than the hardliners in the Tory Party, would blame Thatcher for not sending in the troops if she decided. not to do so.
Besides, I doubt Foot would be to keen to use the issue for political advantage. He didn't make hay out of the Argentine invasion IOTL, and his party was anything but united on the issue. And Foot wasn't really much of a political opportunist. If anything the opposite was true. The issue he talked about most during the 1983 campaign, nuclear disarmament, was probably one of Labour's weakest issues. That said, the Alliance were a greater threat to the Tories at this point, and I could see David Owen hammering Thatcher for her weakness on the issue if the UK did end up caving.
The rights and the circumstances of the people in the Falkland Islands must be uppermost in our minds. There is no question in the Falkland Islands of any colonial dependence or anything of the sort. It is a question of people who wish to be associated with this country and who have built their whole lives on the basis of association with this country. We have a moral duty, a political duty and every other kind of duty to ensure that that is sustained.
639 The people of the Falkland Islands have the absolute right to look to us at this moment of their desperate plight, just as they have looked to us over the past 150 years. They are faced with an act of naked, unqualified aggression, carried out in the most shameful and disreputable circumstances. Any guarantee from this invading force is utterly worthless—as worthless as any of the guarantees that are given by this same Argentine junta to its own people.
We can hardly forget that thousands of innocent people fighting for their political rights in Argentine are in prison and have been tortured and debased. We cannot forget that fact when our friends and fellow citizens in the Falkland Islands are suffering as they are at this moment.
The right hon. Lady, the Secretary of State for Defence and the whole Government will have to give a very full account of what happened, how their diplomacy was conducted and why we did not have the information to which we are entitled when expenditure takes place on such a scale. Above all, more important than the question of what happened to British diplomacy or to British intelligence is what happened to our power to act. The right hon. Lady seemed to dismiss that question. It cannot be dismissed. Of course this country has the power to act—short, often, of taking military measures. Indeed, we have always been told, as I understand it, that the purpose of having some military power is to deter. The right to deter and the capacity to deter were both required in this situation.
Invade while some Doveish gouvernment is in charge. Immediately afterwards offer negotiations, ask UN to mediate the dispute, claim to seek a compromise, beat the anti-colonialist drum etc etc anything to delay a military response and letting British Useful Idiots claim that things can be resolved without fighting while never saying outright, that yes of course they can but only by ultimately leaving the Falklands in Argentine hands.
With every day that passes without a British response, the invasion gets legitimized bit by bit.
By the time the next elections run around or there's a party-internal coup against the PM it'll be a fait accomplit.
This video should provide some insight, but the gist of it is Argentina got really careless with a military campaign they could have won, with many endemic issues in the junta and services that contributed to its defeat. Their basic assumption was that Britain would not try to counter their invasion by force, and as a result, failed to plan for a possible counterattack. This led to a whole series of problems, such as planting ill-adapted northern conscripts in the cold islands as a garrison where better-acclimatized Patagonian troops could have been deployed (though, those would probably still be needed at the Chilean border at the time). Timing of the invasion was also ridiculous, failing to use the worsening climate and ongoing downsizing of the Royal Navy to their advantage by invading so early in the year, they've basically offered the British ample time and resources to mount a counteroffensive. Then, there's the interservice rivalry...
Yea, it's like a step by step guide on how to lose a very winnable war.
Well, Argentine troops were training with the USA in that age. The question is, why would the US care about training Argentine conscripts (with a one year service) for fighting a conventional war against a peer/near-peer in winter/tundra conditions? So they can be more effective in invading Chile?say they trained more with the US.