The Falklands 44 years on. An Avoidable War, a Costly Peace
Updated: Aug 14
by Michael Carberry
In April and May of 2022. I wrote two articles for Only Connect about the Falklands War of 1982, which argued that, despite being a decisive military victory, the Falklands War in fact represented a significant diplomatic and political failure. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the articles received a mixed reception from OC readers. My interest in the subject was twofold: firstly, because I was a serving British diplomat in 1982, actively engaged in lobbying other governments to try and garner support for the UK position. But also, because Rex Hunt, the Governor of the islands at the time of the invasion, was a colleague and personal friend, having served alongside me as British Deputy High Commissioner in Kuala Lumpur immediately before being posted to Port Stanley. However, I had never visited the islands in person, so when I had an opportunity to do so in February of this year, as part of a cruise to South America and the Antarctic, I seized it eagerly. The visit was preceded by a series of on-board lectures by an ex-Royal Marine, Tony Green, who had fought in the war and gave a fascinating and very moving account of his experience in the battle of the Twin Sisters. It was a rare privilege to hear someone explain eloquently and dispassionately what it was like to advance on foot uphill over open ground under enemy fire. Tony Green also dispelled the myth propounded by some ‘armchair soldiers’ that the Argentines were a “walk-over”. Despite being poorly led and poorly equipped many of the conscript soldiers fought with courage and tenacity.
Having visited Buenos Aires on the 19th and 20th February, on the morning of Tuesday 24th February we awoke to see the coast line of the Falklands on a grey and windy but dry day. The landscape comprised mainly low-lying, treeless hills covered with tussock grass. A short while later, our ship, S.S. Borealis, had dropped anchor, the tenders been put into the water, and by 8.00 we were on our way ashore. With no deep-water port, cruise ship passengers have to be ferried a considerable distance to the quayside in Port Stanley, the Islands capital, only significant settlement, and where most of the population live. The weather conditions in the South Atlantic are notoriously unpredictable and with a heavy swell there was doubt until the last minute as to whether we would be allowed to land. Indeed, the First Officer reportedly told the Captain, “If this was the Isle of Man we would not be going ashore.” To which the Captain, a Finn, replied, “That is true, but this is not the Isle of Man and with many Falkland’s War veterans on the ship, who want to conduct a commemorative ceremony, we must enable them to land if at all possible”. The Captain later confirmed that conditions had been very difficult and required considerable skill on behalf of the tender crews whom he publicly thanked. The crew of S.S. Borealis had been obliged to keep all propellors and thrusters running all day just to keep the ship stable, and to stop it from drifting and dragging its anchors.
Port Stanley was an unprepossessing mix of mainly single-storey building strung out along the shoreline, mostly of wood and often with corrugated roofs; not dissimilar to northern parts of Norway. One of the few stone buildings was the grandly named but rather small Christchurch Cathedral, not much larger than the nearby wooden St Mary’s Catholic church. Further along was Government House, the relatively modest residence of the Governor, where Rex Hunt had taken up residence shortly before the Argentine invasion. The Post Office, a few shops, cafes and a couple of small hotels made up the rest of the town centre. Some passengers had opted to visit the battle sites where veterans could lay wreaths, others visited a penguin colony; but, curious to know more about the place, we opted for a tour entitled “Highlights of Port Stanley.” There was little to see; the highlights included a 19th century ship beached and rusting in a cove, a rather scruffy garden filled with bits of whales, a peat bog where until a few years previously islanders used to cut free peat, the Liberation Monument, commemorating the Falklands war, and finally the local museum.
Bu the tour was most interesting for the commentary by the tour guide, a sixth-generation Falkland islander. The population is currently just under 3,500, rather more than the 1,900 or so just before the Argentine invasion. But only 40% of the current population are actual Falkland islanders (much less than before the war). The rest are mainly migrant workers - from the Philippines, Zimbabwe (mostly working on mine clearance because they have experience in that), Chile, South Africa, Ascension Island and - yes, Argentina! All brought in because of the acute shortage of local labour.
The population is projected to decline steadily in the coming years. Keeping people on the islands is a problem and the Falkland Islands Government offers free housing for professionals such as teachers to come and work there. Hospital emergencies have to go to South Africa (at public expense) and school pupils over 16 have to go to the UK for Sixth Form and higher education. Sixth Form or College students over 16 get paid trips home each year, but not University students. Unsurprisingly, many are reluctant to return permanently to the Falklands. Travel is only possible via an RAF-owned Airbus to Ascension Island. Fruit and vegetables are imported at exhorbitant cost from Uruguay (one avocado pear can cost £8). One inevitably wonders how the islanders afford it all.
Before the war, sheep farming was the only industry and the islands’ economic viability was in doubt. Since the war, that has certainly changed and the guide proudly claimed that the islands are self-sufficient mainly through tourism and fishing. But the Falkland Islands government is itself far and away the largest employer. It has bought all the sheep farms and issues fishing permits. With no deep-water harbour, uncertain weather and no contact with the nearest mainland (Argentina), the scope for tourism is limited and only a handful of cruise ships visit the island for a few hours in any one season. So why are the islands apparently doing so well? Part of the answer is the Falkland Islands Development Corporation. Established by the British Government after the war, the FIDC has actively encouraged immigration to boost the economy and increase the government tax take. Many of the immigrants work for the Falkland Islands Company, which carries out a range of trading activities ranging from retail shops and cafés to insurance and vehicle hire and crucially, provides services to the squid fishing fleets from Spain, Korea, Japan and elsewhere from whom the Falkland Islands Government derives a large part of its revenues in licence fees.
The other factor, of course, which was not mentioned by our guide until I asked about it, is the enormous British garrison there. Before the war, the British military presence consisted of a small detachment of 81 marines plus one Royal Fleet auxiliary support vessel - HMS Endurance - which patrolled the waters around the islands. The costs were deemed too great and as part of its progressive defence cuts (what critics have since deemed the “hollowing out” of the British forces) the Thatcher government withdrew Endurance , despite formal warnings that this would signal to the Argentines that Britain was nor prepared to defend its colony. Now, despite the Anglo-Argentine treaty of 1995 formally ending hostilities and Argentina once more a democracy, having renounced the use of force to pursue its historical claim, Britain continues to maintain a substantial garrison. Located discreetly a few miles away from Port Stanley at the Mount Pleasant military base and airport, built after the war at a cost of £7 million, the base includes all three services, numbering some 1700 military and civilian personnel. But if families or other non-Ministry of Defence employees are added, the number is much greater, possibly, according to our guide, outnumbering the resident population of the islands. How much the Falkland Islands Government and the Falkland Islands Company receive for providing services to the garrison, (which they do) is unclear. But there is no doubt that the presence of the base represents a massive subsidy to the Islands’ economy, all paid for entirely by the British taxpayers. The costs are eyewatering. Official figures put these at around £60 million per year or £85 million including capital expenditure. This amounts to over £24,000 per head for every resident but rising to £60,000 per head if one excludes temporary residents and non–citizens (the median annual salary for all employees in the UK is around £32,000) making this what must be the most expensive defence budget in the world on a per capita basis.
Critics of the Falklands expenditure are wont to enumerate what else could be done with this money in the UK - more hospitals, schools, social housing, raising children out of poverty, creating more apprenticeships etc. The fact is that any government expenditure or cuts in taxation always come with such opportunity costs. Deciding priorities and allocating limited resources is what government is all about. But at a time when war is raging in Europe, the UK foreign aid budget has been slashed, and almost all government departments forced to make cuts in order to fund essential defence expenditure it must be questioned whether the vast sums which continue to be poured out on the Falkland Islands garrison represent a sensible use of taxpayers’ money. The MOD talk up the excellent training opportunities which the base offers. But having a training ground nearly 8,000 miles away on the other side of the world and far from any likely combat zone when the same could be achieved at a fraction of the cost in the more rugged parts of the UK or the remoter parts of friendly NATO countries in Europe, hardly makes sense.
So, did the visit change my perception of the Falklands conflict? I can only admire the courage and heroism of those who fought on both sides of the conflict. And I could not fail to be moved by the long list of names of those killed on the Falklands memorial, or the lines of graves of Argentine soldiers buried on the islands because the Junta refused to repatriate the bodies to the mainland on the grounds that they had “died on Argentine soil”. But my overwhelming feeling was one of sadness at the appalling waste of young lives cut short or blighted by injury; and at the vast amounts of treasure poured out then and since. Indeed, I felt a frustration, amounting at times to anger, at the knowledge that it need not and should not have been like that had the politicians and diplomats on both sides done their jobs properly and put mutual interest and common sense ahead of national pride. A very small concession by both sides with regard to the “absolute sovereignty” which they both demanded could have settled this long running problem for good. It would have created multiple possibilities for cooperation in trade, tourism, fishing, education, health care with the Islanders’ nearest neighbours on the mainland and at significantly less cost to British taxpayers.
That might well have been achieved by a proposed lease-back scheme whereby Argentina would have nominal sovereignty over the Islands but they would effectively be leased back to the UK.. The Falkland Islanders would have retained their British citizenship and their special way of life. But the islanders themselves, backed by several British politicians, were implacably hostile, believing that the British government would always defend them and a last-minute attempt to revive the proposal immediately following the Argentine invasion was rejected out of hand by Margaret Thatcher. Today, more than forty years on, tensions with Argentina remain high as evidenced by the banner-waving incidents at the recent football World Cup. Despite UN resolutions calling on both sides to negotiate a long-term settlement, there are no contacts with Argentina or cooperation with the Argentine government. Britain is diplomatically isolated. Most UN members, including many Commonwealth countries and the United States, see this as an anachronistic relic of Britain’s colonial past and are sympathetic to the Argentine position. In many respects the situation is actually worse than before the war.
Overall, the visit only confirmed my conviction that although the war may have “liberated” the islands in that it got rid of the Argentine occupying forces; in every other respect it had solved nothing, and indeed made the situation even more intractable than ever. The present absurd situation cannot continue indefinitely. While Falklands veterans and the generation who vividly remember the war are still with us, it is unlikely that any British government would risk trying to change the status quo. But there is little doubt in my mind, that once the present generation are gone and memories of the conflict begin to fade, talks about sovereignty will resume, an accommodation will be found and that, ultimately, the islands will probably quietly be transferred to Argentine sovereignty in the same way that the UK has divested itself of many similar post-colonial hangovers elsewhere.
So, in the end was it all worth it? Readers will have their own views and must make up their own minds. There are those who say grandly that “Freedom has no price!”. Try telling that to the families of those whose names are inscribed on the monument in Port Stanley or on the lines of Argentine graves on that barren hillside in the South Atlantic.
Comments