President Fernandez of Argentina has called for negotiations about the sovereinty of the Falkland Islands, which she and her country call the Malvinas and believe are theirs. Nowadays most of the world probably agrees. Certainly the U.S. does and has called upon the UK and Argentina to start talking. Cameron has refused point blank. President Fernandez calls him arrogant. This blog calls him foolish.
Times have changed since their heroic recapture in 1983, when the U.S. tacitly backed the Brits, when the chips were down. Then we retained the kind of military which could launch and sustain from the sea, a land war on the far side of the globe. The Argentine Junta was seen as foolhardy and although their air force proved a lot more potent than expected, Britain won a lightening campaign and restored its standing in the world as a significant military power. The shame of Suez was washed to the bottom of the South Atlantic.
In the modern world a British colonial possession of land, close to the shores of a sovereign claimant and so far away as to be beyond the reach or even the comprehension of most in the UK, no longer sits well. If we end up in another clash, few in the UN will support the British position, the US under a Democratic President certainly will not and the British people will be far less willing to back yet another overseas war. Moreover we no longer have the military capacity to recapture the Falklands, without US participation.
This is not about the inhabitants. They may want to remain British, but the plain fact is they cannot live without Argentina. Sooner or later a compromise has to be found on the question of their nationality and passports. But now it is more than that, as there may be oil beneath the ocean off-shore. This gives the row traction.
A wise and clever British Government would negotiate a deal which left us with some tenure whilst giving Argentina enough to meet its national aspirations. The value to the UK of joint exploration of oilfields and mutual trade, with a friendly Argentina in partnership, far outstrips the breast beating and obduracy of current Foreign Office policy, which is blind to reality as it looks backwards to Thatcher era glory.