March 18, 2002
Twenty
Years On
The
nature of friendship: Britain, America and Argentina during the
Falklands War
When,
twenty years ago, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands – subjecting
their British inhabitants to the severest tyranny imaginable (they
made them drive on the right hand side of the road) – many Reagan
administration officials found themselves in the rare position of
agreeing with Mario Vargas Llosa, in that they too felt surely this
war was akin to ‘two bald men arguing over a comb’? And these were
the ones favourable to Britain. On the evening of the invasion,
Jeane Kirkpatrick, then US ambassador to the UN, cheerfully went
off to dinner at the Argentine embassy in Washington. As Sir John
Nott, Britain’s defence secretary during the war, has just concluded
in his
autobiography:
The
United States [...] did not wish to choose between Britain and their
interests in Latin America. Indeed, apart from [Casper] Weinberger
and the Pentagon, the Americans were very, very far from being on
our side.
And
why should they have been, what was it to them? By examining the
‘dance of diplomacy’ that went on in April 1982, where the US continuously
sought to bring Britain to accept a solution short of the pre-war
status quo, there is one, unambiguous thing to be seen – from the
British point of view, no such thing as a special relationship
with America exists, inasmuch as that phrase is meant to connote
something beneficial for us. An independent British foreign policy
is only going to come into being when this is appreciated for the
perfectly reasonable truth it is.
Jeane
Kirkpatrick had, long before President Reagan made her a cabinet
member, well established form on Latin America; her university thesis
on Peronism was subsequently published as a book under the appealing
title, Leader and Vanguard in Mass Society. More pertinent
to her appointment to the UN was a Commentary essay from
November 1979 – ‘Dictatorship and Double Standards’ – which dilated
on her belief in the difference between ‘authoritarian’ regimes
(e.g. the military Junta in Argentina) and ‘totalitarian’ ones (to
wit, the Eastern bloc). The latter were bad, but the former
had some plus points for Jeane, notably that they were susceptible
to ‘liberalising pressures’ [I suspect this means that they were
susceptible to something else, much more traditional in form,
but we’ll move on], and that they lacked territorial ambitions .
. .
Truth
to tell, the
Falklands War, what with illustrating the intellectual flimsiness
of Kirkpatrickism, and in her politically suicidal battle with Secretary
of State Al Haig, did the UN ambassador no good at all. It should,
however, be noted that she was making a sound enough point when
she pushed for neutrality between Britain and Argentina. The Reagan
administration had expended a great deal of effort cultivating the
new Argentine dictator, general Galtieri, because here at last was
a South American leader who would, up to and including with men
and arms, fall in behind US policy in the region, with El Salvador
being the key issue for people like Kirkpatrick, Vernon Walters
and National Security Advisor William Clark. Some readers of antiwar.com
may well feel that that that last country doesn’t represent one
of the high points of post-war US foreign policy, but the point
remains, the duly elected American government had conceived itself
as having certain objectives there, and tilting towards Britain
during the Falklands was rightly held by the likes of Kirkpatrick
as being inimical to them.
Before
we turn to what our foremost ally concluded was the right thing
to do, it’s worth reflecting on the Falklands War in isolation,
as if it had taken place in a world where, to quote Enoch Powell,
America’s rulers did not believe that ‘they are authorised,
possibly by the deity, to intervene, openly or covertly, in the
internal affairs of other countries anywhere in the world’. Or even,
for that matter, in the inter-state relations of two foreign states.
For, as we’ll see, this near-uniquely is what happened, and though
it did so more by chance than anything else, it gives us a glimpse
of a world where Washington DC feels able to sleep, and let the
world turn without her.
Until
Peron Anglo-Argentine relations had been so good that she was regarded,
by herself, and by others, as being a kind of ‘6th Dominion’ (alongside
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Newfoundland).
A popular saying had it that ‘Argentinians are Italians who speak
bad Spanish and aspire to be English’. Carter-era sanctions on the
sale of arms had resulted in a happy British filling of the void.
The late Guido Di Tello, an admittedly Anglophile Foreign Minister
of the old school, tellingly saw, after the war, what the
diplomatic significance of the old state of affairs had been: ‘British
influence was so great that Argentina was considered part of the
British informal empire. [This] enhanced her resistance to the attempts
of the US to establish continental hegemony’.
One
of the greatest tragedies of the war was that the lingering remnants
of this relationship – Buenos Aries was a city made especially congenial
to the old Argentine ruling elite, her displaced plantocracy, by
cultural institutions such as Harrods, the Hurlingham club and British
nannies – were ripped asunder. Yet why had an atavistic nationalist
impulse (the desire to ‘recover’ the Falklands) turned into war
only some 150 years after it was first contemplated? Obviously the
decline of British power is fundamental to the origin of
the crisis, but what were the more direct causes?
An
unhappy combination between the limp wristed spin the Foreign Office
managed to put on top of the reality of British decline, and, the
advent in Argentina of an especially untalented military dictatorship,
keen to obtain popular legitimacy through external action. In one
of those tiny ironies, the Junta was as unpopular as it was in 1981/82
because of the impact of the half-understood monetarist policies
they attempted to impose on the Argentine economy. What needs to
be put before that, though, is that every Argentine dictatorship
since the 60s had made noises at the UN about the Falklands, and
that, rather than firmly rebuff these, the British had entered into
futile talks about them. British conspiracy theorists, such as the
Labour MP Tam Dayell, like to allude darkly to the role Vernon Walters
played in one of his frequent ‘non-trips’ to Argentina, in terms
of the Junta getting a ‘green light’ to invade, but this rests on
a peculiar socialist delusion. Namely that anyone in Washington
could have thought that (non-existent) American designs on the Falklands
could have been better served through the agency of her Argentine
rather than her British client. Far more of a ‘the tart was asking
for it’ come-on for successive Argentine regimes was the absence
of resistance to their fatuously unreasonable demands (a ‘colonial
liberation movement’ where the inhabitants of the colony weren’t
allowed to express their viewpoint) by the British themselves.
To
jump slightly ahead of our narrative, a key trigger factor in the
launching of the war was the Junta’s reading of history. Although
flawed in their understanding of international relations, and profoundly
ignorant of the outside world, the more acute analysts available
to the regime had a subtle enough take on the post-war behaviour
of the US. They looked to her actions over both Suez and the Yom
Kippur war, and concluded that, were Buenos Aries to instigate a
war, America would intervene diplomatically, but, as both
those precedents showed, the end result would be to the benefit
of the newly created status quo. In this, they were not wrong, as
it is precisely what the Reagan administration attempted to do,
but they were mistaken, for they had concluded from Suez an immutable
law, which, as Thatcher was to show, didn’t actually exist.
Was
Britain mute, in her twenty years of talks with Argentina before
the war, because she was conscious of an inability to defend the
islands? No, every detail published thus far points to British diplomats
always thinking it preposterous that Argentina would contemplate
military action, not least because, as the war was to show, eventually
any successful assault on the Islands would be reversed, and hence
there could be no long term gain to a rational Argentine administration.
But the very fact of Britain’s military inattention to the islands,
screamingly evident to Argentina’s military rulers, served only
to encourage them in their work. And why were we naked before the
storm? NATO.
Also,
our twentieth century economic decline and fall – however, here
isn’t the place to consider how fortunate the United States is that
there Trades Unions were only legalised in the 30s – but chiefly,
our continental commitment being the cornerstone of Britain’s military
posture, and that that posture being the end expression of our foreign
policy entailed by the primacy of the Atlantic Alliance. In the
words of the 1981 Defence Review (hereafter, the Nott Review), the
‘forward defence of the German Federal Republic’ was ‘the forward
defence of Britain itself’. Britain’s military capabilities had,
quite rightly, dovetailed with her foreign policy objectives from
the late 50s onwards. Less happily, her declining economic standing
meant that foreign policy goals were readjusted in light of what
military resources it was felt the country could afford. The NATO
role assigned to the Royal Navy was the ‘Eastlant’ responsibility,
which, as you’ll remember from the 1980s, was to keep the sealanes
round Europe open, so that troops from America could steam to the
continent’s aid in the aftermath of a Soviet invasion.
Now,
the thing was, the Russians didn’t really look much as if they were
going to do that, but we all accepted that they might, so
military resources had to be provided towards meeting that overriding
need. In terms of the Navy and British foreign policy, the main
implication of this was, what sort of Navy do you have? Do you have
one capable of ‘Out of [NATO] Area’ operations but nominally purchased
so as to discharge a NATO obligation (in other words, you get twice
the bang for your buck by having a ‘dual use’ fleet), or do you
just go for the ‘let’s keep the Communists at bay option’? and thereby
progressively give up on the military means to back up a foreign
policy outside Europe? In the devastating Nott Review, the answer
was, the dictates of the Atlantic Alliance – as opposed to the possibility
of Britain providing herself with the ability to pursue an independent
foreign policy, came first. Hence in 1981 the British government
announced that it was divesting itself of: its amphibious capability
(e.g. HM ships Fearless and Intrepid, central to the
recovery of the Falklands the next year); and large, surface escort
vessels – due, laughably, to ‘advances’ in naval doctrine, which
held that convoys were an obsolete means of transporting material
across the Atlantic – from carriers down to frigates; and investing
instead in more nuclear hunter-killer submarines. This, had it been
achieved, would have been the end of Britain’s independent ability
to project military power.
Now
I want to stay clear of the sillier conspiracy theories, but this
Thatcherite reassertion of the primacy of the Atlantic Alliance
was welcomed by Washington. This, from the perspective of DC, was
Britain’s job. If John Nott, the most economically minded defence
secretary we have ever had, balanced the books in this fashion,
well, at least it was with a view to being able to do the Cold War
task America had assigned Britain. Into this stepped general Galtieri:
the true saviour of the Royal Navy. The war he started was extremely
unwelcome in Washington for all the reasons alluded to above, but
there was still a clear choice (the stark invasion of a democratic
ally’s territory by a military dictatorship being one of those easier
issues)to be made by the US: back Britain or not. Not, it turned
out.
April
1982 witnessed the ‘dance of diplomacy’, where Haig self-consciously
sought to emulate the shuttle-diplomacy of Kissinger, and flew tens
of thousands of miles to prevent the war. Al Haig, a combat veteran,
sincerely wanted to, during the window afforded by the progress
down the Atlantic of the British taskforce, prevent any war from
taking place. However, rather more than simple humanitarian sentiment
motivated him: he, and the government he acted for, desired the
preservations of the American alliance with both countries, and
not see their bilateral bad blood wreck the global interests of
the United States. We could jump up and down and say that she, then
as now, had grossly misconceived interests, but those were the entirely
rational assumptions under which he acted. Did he do so ably? Was
he Kissinger redux?
That
fighting started suggests at a surface level, patently not, but
this obscures the more important failure: was the pose of neutrality,
maintained until 30th April, in American interests? Was this (attempting
to foist a ‘compromise’ on the imminent combatants) an enterprise
sensibly undertaken by the Secretary of State? The American public
said no, with every opinion poll showing partiality for Britain
running at at least 60%. However, the real reason why Haig was unwise
to do what he did lies in what would have happened were he successful,
and we see this clearly in what others did at the time.
To
cut
a long story short, Haig, in the words again of John Nott, ‘gave
every assistance to the United Nations and every other mediator
– Brazilian, Mexican and the rest to bring about a negotiated settlement,
on terms which would have been seen as a surrender in the United
Kingdom’. To repeat, Haig was not a bigoted Anglophobe in the fashion
of a Kirkpatrick, but an Atlanticist friend of the UK, yet the tilt
of his diplomacy that April was to, time after time, present London
with schemes whereby, sovereignty of the islands would be shared,
the islanders would be offered safe passage to Britain, the taskforce
would stop at Ascension, the British would administer the islands
under the Argentine flag (or vice versa), an irrevocable timetable
would be set for ‘decolonization’ if the Argentines did withdraw,
and on and on it went, with the sole discernible fact about the
nature of American intervention in two other countries’ war being,
‘you’re all as silly as each other, so you’ll all have to compromise
a little bit’.
Whilst
they have something of the quality of a sales pitch, the very words
of Haig to the Argentinians, when he made his last great effort
to convince the Junta to accept his tripartite solution to the islands’
fate (i.e. a commission comprised of Britain, Argentina and America
would determine it) should be known to every Conservative British
proponent of the ‘special relationship’:
In
London I insisted that decisions should be taken by majority during
the whole procedure, in order that the United States may be able
to bring changes to the islands. Sincerely, I do not believe that
either party can obtain all they desire, but we want to be sure
of a successful solution. [Falklands
– the Secret Plot, Oscar Raul Cardoso & others, 1983]
There,
as plain as you like, is the dominant experience of postwar American
foreign policy for the poor old American voter: the public, in every
measure of their opinion taken, wanted Britain backed, the
men who conducted US foreign policy, quite rightly, given the Cold
War paradigm they subscribed to, believed America had to do otherwise.
Yet
why is this also emblematic of the characteristic foolishness with
which so much recent US foreign policy has been imbued? Simply enough:
imagine if Haig’s shuttling had been rewarded by the Junta accepting
one of his many ‘compromise’ solutions. Then he would have had to
take this back to London, and what would have been the consequence
of that? only surrender or defiance. Which is were I think history
would have taken a very different turn if only the Argentine dictatorship
had only been marginally smarter, for if there’s one thing Margaret
Thatcher’s not, she’s not an Anthony Eden. This time would have
been, Suez: the worm turns.
After
the invasion the US declined to impose sanctions on Argentina, and
diplomatically entered the fray to the disadvantage of Britain.
The Europeans on the other hand, imposed, through the EEC, immediate
sanctions (although individual countries like the Irish and the
Spanish consistently voted against the UK at the UN), and as for
the French! The great revelation in Nott’s
biography is that:
In
many ways, Mitterrand and the French were our greatest allies. They
had supplied the Argentines with Mirage and Super Etendard aircraft
in the earlier years; but, as soon as the conflict began, Mitterrand's
defence minister got in touch with me to make some of these available
so that our Harrier pilots could train against them before setting
off for the South Atlantic. The French also supplied us with detailed
technical information on the Exocet, showing us how to tamper with
the missiles.
A
remarkable worldwide operation then ensued to prevent Argentina
from buying further Exocets. I authorised agents to pose as bona
fide purchasers of equipment on the international market, ensuring
that we outbid the Argentines; meanwhile, other agents identified
Exocet missiles in various markets and covertly rendered them inoperable.
It
was a remarkably successful operation. In spite of strenuous efforts
by several countries – particularly Israel and South Africa – to
help Argentina, we succeeded in intercepting and preventing the
supply of further equipment to the Argentines, who were desperately
seeking resupply.
This
is not a refrain you will hear from many Eurosceptics, despite it
being, as it were, the proof of the pudding: when the two relationships
were put to the supreme test, which country came through for us?
I
don't doubt for a second that the wily Mitterand, banking on Haig
obtaining something from the Junta he could inflict upon the British,
was playing his hand long, knowing that the near-inevitable breach
that this (the British reaction to any compromise proposals, whether
to give in and accept them, or break with the Americans and reject
them) would have caused could only but benefit French purposes.
There is nothing to gainsay such an approach, however unattractive
the pursuit thus of national independence can appear, for who, having
seen what Britain gets from alliance with the United States, would
opt for that?
PS
if you want to see the reward for devotion, I suggest you hop off
to National Review Online, where in response to the news
that a convicted IRA bomber, who illegally entered the United
States, was picked to be Grand Marshall of a St. Patrick’s Day parade
(causing some police and firemen to drop out in protest), this
econium to the fellow’s upright qualities was run. National
Review, in bombed New York, has a good line of abuse for the
merest hint of terroristphiliac behaviour anywhere else, brings
to mind that line, ‘you’re either with us or you’re against us’.
I do wish that more people here would realise that all too many
Americans aren’t with us.
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