Could Britain Beat Argentina?
Argentina’s saber rattling over the Falkland Islands brings attention to how much the Royal Navy has shrunk in just 27 years. In 1982, Britain dispatched a task force to defend the Falkland Islands against Argentina, but many fear that London could not do the same today.
Capt. Sir Michael Clapp, who commanded the amphibious assault against Argentina’s invasion in 1982, doubts that Britain could repeat the operation. “I’m not doubting the resolve of our armed forces—our soldiers, sailors and airmen have a long and proud track record of plucking success from adversity—but I’m sorry to say that we no longer have the ships and equipment to launch a sea-borne attack on an enemy on the other side of the world,” he wrote in the Daily Mail last Friday.
“If the Royal Naval fleet has shrunk spectacularly since 1982—it had 55 frigates and destroyers then; today it has 24—then the British merchant fleet has all but disappeared,” he wrote. “Who knows where we’d get the ships to support a war in the South Atlantic from now.”
In 1982, the Navy used Sea Harrier airplanes very effectively against Argentina. But now the Sea Harriers have been scrapped, and the Navy is so short on planes that it’s had to borrow some from the U.S. Marines for practice.
“[T]he figures are grim wherever you look,” wrote Clapp. “We had 320,000 armed forces personnel in 1982; now we have 188,000. And with so many serving in theaters around the world, where would we now muster the thousands of elite troops it took to win the 1982 conflict?”
“And so it goes on. In 1982, we had 17 destroyers and sent eight to the Falklands. Now we have only seven—and many of them are engaged in policing waters elsewhere.”
Maj. Gen. Julian Thompson, a Royal Marine commander in the Falklands War, said, “We still have some excellent soldiers. The problem is getting them there.”
As Clapp points out, this weakness is dangerous. “[R]emember that one of the events that prompted the last Argentine invasion was the announcement of plans to withdraw the Antarctic patrol ship, hms Endurance,” he wrote. “That was just one ship; now it’s the woefully depleted state of our entire fleet that could be sending a similar message.”
And this is a message being received by more than just Argentina. Britain’s weakness is evident to the whole world. After all, the European Union is just as likely to attempt to take over the Falkland Islands as Argentina.
The Royal Navy once made Britain a superpower. Now the Falkland Islands—one of Britain’s last remaining sea gates—must cower under the pettiness of Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.
The sad decline of the British Navy places the survival of the whole country in jeopardy. For more information on this tragic decline, see our article “Twilight for Britannia.”