Source Government Executive Media Group
A 40-year-old war should not give China an arms-supply toehold in Latin America.
Media www.rajawalisiber.com – On April 2, 1982, the Argentine junta sent heavily armed marines to take possession of the Malvinas Islands, the South Atlantic chain held for a century and a half by Britain. London responded with force and retook the islands in a 72-day war that left 900 dead, material losses on both sides, and a foreign-policy hangover that today threatens to drive Argentina’s defense buyers into Chinese or Russian arms.
In recent years, various Argentine administrations have tried—and failed—to acquire foreign fighter aircraft to update the country’s aging Dessault Mirage III. But the British government has systematically pressed every Western country to deny the request. This leaves Buenos Aires with only Chinese or Russian options. Forty years after war, and with revisionist illiberal powers gaining influence in Latin America, Argentina must be allowed to join the nations that fly Western combat aircraft.
So much has changed in the last four decades. Argentina left behind its tumultuous history with military dictatorships, and while it still maintains its claim over the islands’ sovereignty, it has consistently made clear at the United Nations that it will only continue to do so through diplomatic means.
Even if a future administration threatened to retake the islands by force, the Argentinean armed forces are in worse shape than they were four decades ago. In 1978, Argentina dedicated 4.7 percent of its GDP to military spending, more than doubling the Latin American average. But since the democratic transition, governments have reduced the share of defense spending to the 0.8 percent of GDP in 2021. It would take several decades for the southern country to recover the capabilities that could enable a military action on the islands. Argentina no longer has fighter aircraft, submarines, or an aircraft carrier. Buying jet aircraft would mean no threat to the U.K.