WI Argentia Decides not to Invade Falklands

It widely considered that while Argentina had always claimed the Falkland Islands, one of the real reasons for going to war, especially when they did, was because General Leopoldo Galtieri, Dictator of Argentina, felt that a war would distract from the instibilty that his country was faced with. Unrest had been growing, and in an effort to head it off, he invaded the Falkands.

BUT: WI instead of invaded the Falklands, Argentina instead invaded Chilean Controled Tirria De Feugo, another part of the region which they claim, and have histroic ties to? What would happen there? Is it even possible?
 
mishery said:
Maggie loses, yay! :)


Oh yeah, and the whole country would be ruined: "yay" indeed.:rolleyes:

Of course she might indeed. An SDP breakthrough would be very interesting, and is actually more likely than a Labour victory.
 
Wozza said:
Oh yeah, and the whole country would be ruined: "yay" indeed.:rolleyes:

Of course she might indeed. An SDP breakthrough would be very interesting, and is actually more likely than a Labour victory.
LOL
You can't ruin the country anymore then she did.
The SDP could be very interesting in power...
I'd agree there is very little chance of labour getting in here.
This could be a good POD for getting them in.
 
Leej said:
LOL
You can't ruin the country anymore then she did.
The SDP could be very interesting in power...
I'd agree there is very little chance of labour getting in here.
This could be a good POD for getting them in.

Whether one likes her or not her big error, responding the wrong money supply indicator is before thr 1983 election.
After the election comes the things that I notice nobody plams to reverse - privatisations and the Big Bang, tax cuts and trade union restrictions
also the start of public sector reform.
the miner's strike I simply see as unavoidable.

The danger would be a government left with the legacy of Thatcher's macroeconomic mistake but not implementing the microeconomic reform. the worst of all possible worlds.
 
eek hijack...

How do you say the miners strike is unavoidable?
A more left wing labour like government would not betray the miners and go back on the agreement the way Thatcher did. If the miners did strike it would also be more likely to be a standard strike without the police thuggary and destruction of society that happened IOTL.
 
Leej said:
eek hijack...

How do you say the miners strike is unavoidable?
A more left wing labour like government would not betray the miners and go back on the agreement the way Thatcher did. If the miners did strike it would also be more likely to be a standard strike without the police thuggary and destruction of society that happened IOTL.

The miners (or rather their leadership) refused to compromise - the Conservative proposal involved voluntary redundancies only
their demands were uneconomic or unaffordable, ultimately no government could bow to them -the subsidy could not grow indefinitely.

As for piolice thuggery you can hear plenty of accounts of trade union thuggery. I suspect it will be a while before we get a real, objective history of those times.
 
A) As much as i hated her with a passion, Maggie steps down is more likely. In 1982 she was about as popular as a slice of turkey on a Vegtarians plate at christmas, but how would she deal with that? And who would you imagine would take over?
B) Chile anyone? Argentina? :D
 
Argentina could be considered as the aggresor in this case . The UN might force her to leave Chile alone . The UK would support this resolution because they would feel threatened by Galtieri's expansionism.
Also , if I'm not mistakeing , Chile was an important trading partner of the US.
 
Maggie would have still won in 83. The miner's strike was a year away, and Labour were in such disarray that she would have still been at Number 10-albeit with a reduced majority than in OTL.
 
SteveW said:
Maggie would have still won in 83. The miner's strike was a year away, and Labour were in such disarray that she would have still been at Number 10-albeit with a reduced majority than in OTL.

I think an SDP breakthrough was a real possibility.
I cannot see Michael Foot winning, not ever.
 
Wozza said:
I think an SDP breakthrough was a real possibility.
I cannot see Michael Foot winning, not ever.

I agree with you on both counts. Though it might have been more likely if Roy Jenkins hadn't won Hillhead, and Owen had been left as SDP leader. Jenkins was maybe too cosy to the Liberals, and (importantly after the Falklands) Owen was a defence hawk.
 
As unfortunate as it is to say this, the government would have given the Falklands to the Argentineans, eventually. Also, the RN would not be the powerful force that it is today and we would probably have no aircraft carriers. I would hate to live in this ATL.

BTW STOP BADMOUTHING MAGGIE. She is the best thing that could have happened to this country at the time. :mad:
 
LowLevelFunctionary said:
As unfortunate as it is to say this, the government would have given the Falklands to the Argentineans, eventually. Also, the RN would not be the powerful force that it is today and we would probably have no aircraft carriers. I would hate to live in this ATL.

BTW STOP BADMOUTHING MAGGIE. She is the best thing that could have happened to this country at the time. :mad:

Negotiate away the Falklands? So what? Why would any country want to keep such a far away, desolate place?

Why would the RN not be as powerful? No aircraft carriers so what? More money to spend on social programs and infrastructure would make Britain wealthier than it is now. Less reliance on insanely expensive American nuclear technology and more reliance on a lower level nuclear deterrence and a smaller, more flexible armed services better equiped to deal with the sort of threats that could concievably face the UK today sounds exactly what the military wants now and wanted in the 1980s.

How can any reasonable person not badmouth Mad Maggie and the Raving Loony Right! 'There is no such thing as society'. Do you believe this drivel? Or are you enamoured with her nineteenth century economic nonsense that was spun to look 'modern'?
 
LowLevelFunctionary said:
As unfortunate as it is to say this, the government would have given the Falklands to the Argentineans, eventually. Also, the RN would not be the powerful force that it is today and we would probably have no aircraft carriers. I would hate to live in this ATL.

BTW STOP BADMOUTHING MAGGIE. She is the best thing that could have happened to this country at the time. :mad:

To be brutally honest, i dont think the royal Navy is that powerful today. We have a small elite army, but our navy is just small. our aircraft carriers are tiny, especialy when compared to the American conterparts. And i dont see how we wouldnt get them, we just might not get as many

Maggie Destroyed the Economy in Britain, and was quite possibly the Worst Prime Minister that we have ever had. history will not be kind to her. She was recently exposed to have threatened to use Nuclear weapons on Argentina. Nuclear weapons on for some rocks! Damn, she was bad.

Andrei said:
Argentina could be considered as the aggresor in this case . The UN might force her to leave Chile alone . The UK would support this resolution because they would feel threatened by Galtieri's expansionism.
Also , if I'm not mistakeing , Chile was an important trading partner of the US.

Yes, the UN might get involved, especially if Argentina decided to open so more fronts.... And Chile was a trading partner of the US, but also under Pinochet at the time. Considering in 1992 (1990? Sometime around this time) he held his pleibiste to decide his future role, a good war might do him good. It worked for another riducuosly right wing leader somwhere else i recall.....
 

MrP

Banned
RN probably a lot smaller. Govt was discussing selling off one of the carriers to Aus when the Falklands went down. Deal was totally off the cards subsequently. Falklands also gave a big boost to British military prestige in general. Anyway, back to the RN. If we're down to 2 carriers, I'm not sure the two future carriers in discussion would be considered. The RN is a fairly powerful elite force, but definitely small. During an argument with Tielhard and while considering a potential career with the RN I did a lot of research into its current strength. Removing the omnipowerful USN from the equation, you've got either 2nd or 3rd world navies in play. France's carriers are mismatched and dodgy, Russia's is rusting, while Italy and Spain are tiny, India is old but numerous . . .

Britain would be less involved in international politics with a smaller RN, and we'd see some potentially interesting knock-on effects in situations like the Gulf. If the USA wants a junior partner who'd it turn to instead? France? Offhand, IIRC, only she has comparable carrier potential for force projection.
 
Mort said:
To be brutally honest, i dont think the royal Navy is that powerful today. We have a small elite army, but our navy is just small. our aircraft carriers are tiny, especialy when compared to the American conterparts. And i dont see how we wouldnt get them, we just might not get as many

Well you may be correct, but we are getting bigger carriers soon:cool:

Mort said:
Maggie Destroyed the Economy in Britain, and was quite possibly the Worst Prime Minister that we have ever had. history will not be kind to her. She was recently exposed to have threatened to use Nuclear weapons on Argentina. Nuclear weapons on for some rocks! Damn, she was bad.

No... Maggie re-built the economey of this country, when she came to power we were the "sick man of Europe" and she laid the groundwork for the position we are now in, low inflation with near total employment, contrast us to other EU members and you will see the good work done under her.:)
 
MarkA said:
Negotiate away the Falklands? So what? Why would any country want to keep such a far away, desolate place?

Why would the RN not be as powerful? No aircraft carriers so what? More money to spend on social programs and infrastructure would make Britain wealthier than it is now. Less reliance on insanely expensive American nuclear technology and more reliance on a lower level nuclear deterrence and a smaller, more flexible armed services better equiped to deal with the sort of threats that could concievably face the UK today sounds exactly what the military wants now and wanted in the 1980s.

How can any reasonable person not badmouth Mad Maggie and the Raving Loony Right! 'There is no such thing as society'. Do you believe this drivel? Or are you enamoured with her nineteenth century economic nonsense that was spun to look 'modern'?

1) To defend British citizens who wanted to remain free to live on the island without being forced to accept Argentinian autocratic rule

2) Well yeah, I never said it was a huge navy, but it is quite a powerful force considering. Well - I happen to believe in maintaining a strong defence. Look at the country now for example - We can do both (defence + civil programmes).

3) As a person of the right I find this a totally discriminatory and insulting comment. Perhaps you should look within your own ranks before laying the blame on those with opposite political beliefs to yours! First of all, may I just say that I don't actually agree with everything Thatcher has said or done, especially the society issue. I do actually believe in a society - and the role of the state, am not a 'Thatcherite'. But I very much applaud Thatcher’s leadership style and economic competence. Whatever you say, the fact is that this country was heading down the road of economic collapse, with certain elements unfairly controlling the direction of the economy. Yes, of course it’s the right thing to give workers and others a decent wage, but not to the extent that they put whole industries and the country's livelihood at risk (especially their own jobs!)

Now please, I hate it when these threads get off topic but I just couldn't allow it to turn into a Thatcher bashing session. I really don’t want this thread to be hijacked or anything because the consequences of the POD are quite interesting, if negative in many aspects, for the UK. I will need to look into it more because I remember reading an interesting article on the exact same thing (in the WHAT IF style).
 

Gremlin

Banned
Yes they were just rocks 8000miles away from the Home Iles at that - but they contained a population that under article 73 of the UN charter were british.

Maggie was well within her rights to threaten nuclear retaliation. If the US can lash out at a crushed & defeated nation then Thatcher can surely threaten their use if the rights of the islanders are not restored.

But on the thread topic itself - If Argentina goes up against Chile, The UK would just see it as another problem in latin America for the US to clean up, given domestic troubles I'd hardly see it getting a headline.
 
Oil

Another point to bear in mind is the large reserves of oil within the Falklands territorial waters with a survey being conducted in 1977/8, relatively close to the Argentinean invasion.
I've heard rumors before that at least one of reasons for the Argentinean invasion was oil, quite topical really
 
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