How Did Argentina Lose the Falklands War? Defeat in the South Atlantic

In April 1982, Argentina caught the British government by surprise and launched a successful invasion of the Falkland Islands, also known as the Malvinas, occupying the British overseas territory with minimal casualties. However, despite its initial success, the resolve of the United Kingdom to recover the Falkland Islands, paired with Argentina’s diplomatic isolation and inability to achieve air and naval superiority around the Islands, led to the country’s crushing defeat in the Falklands War a little over two months after the initial invasion.

Since the early 19th century, Argentina and the United Kingdom have disputed the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands, known as the Islas Malvinas* in Argentina, in the South Atlantic. The islands have been an overseas territory of the United Kingdom, predominantly populated with settlers of British descent, since 1833.

Following a coup in 1976, Argentina was ruled by a military junta. The junta’s legitimacy, however, was never fully accepted by a significant portion of Argentinian society, and it engaged in rampant human rights abuses, including the outright murder of its opponents, to maintain its position. By the early 1980s, in the face of a devastating economic crisis, the junta’s grip on power was beginning to look shaky.

Desperate to rally support from the people, the junta decided in early 1982 to seize the Falkland Islands and nearby South Georgia Island by military force.

Invasion of the Falkland Islands

The initial Argentinian invasion was a total success—while tensions over the Falkland Islands had been rising, the British government was not expecting Argentina to attempt to resolve the dispute through military force.

The Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands commenced on the evening of April 1, 1982. The key objective of the invasion was to secure Stanley, the capital of the islands and their largest settlement, with a population just over 1,000 in 1982. The United Kingdom had garrisoned Stanley with a token force of Royal Marines, but opposing them were approximately 600 Argentinian marines.

Despite being significantly outnumbered, the highly trained British forces put up a spirited resistance to the invasion and inflicted casualties on the invading Argentinian forces. Nonetheless, given the inevitable outcome and intent on avoiding civilian casualties, the British governor surrendered the Falkland Islands to the Argentinians on April 2.

The next day, the Argentinian forces seized South Georgia Island. Once again, they suffered light casualties in the face of resistance by a small garrison of Royal Marines.  The junta was able to present the capture of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia as a triumph to the Argentinian people. However, the initial success of the invasion masked critical strategic errors that would shortly lead to a spectacular Argentinian defeat.

The junta made a critical miscalculation: it expected the British government to accept the loss of sovereignty over the Falkland Islands once they were successfully occupied by Argentinian forces. The junta’s assessment of the likely British reaction was not entirely unreasonable. Prior to 1982, the British had been negotiating with the Argentinians to transfer sovereignty. Some in the British government viewed the Falkland Islands as an economic burden and the continuing dispute with Argentina as a barrier to trade. It also seemed inconceivable that the United Kingdom, which is nearly 8,000 miles from the Falkland Islands, would be able to respond militarily.

However, the junta failed to appreciate the outrage the invasion would produce among the British public, which was galvanized by pictures of the Royal Marines being forced to lay down in front of their captors and by the plight of the Falkland Islanders. Moreover, Britain’s leader, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was determined that Argentina’s aggression be answered. Thatcher issued orders to dispatch a task force with the objective of reconquering the Falklands.

The British task force consisted of nuclear submarines, a mix of surface combat ships that included guided missile destroyers and frigates, troop carriers, amphibious warfare ships, civilian ships pressed into military service, and two aircraft carriers, the HMS Hermes and HMS Invincible, which carried approximately 40 fighter jets between them.

Onboard the troop transports were highly trained professional units that had combat experience in North Ireland. Overall, the British task force eventually numbered nearly 130 ships.

In response to the task force’s launch, the junta garrisoned the islands with approximately 13,000 soldiers. However, most of the Argentinian land forces on the Falkland Islands consisted of conscripts with minimal training and no combat experience. The Argentinian junta’s miscalculation of the British response to the invasion of the Falkland Islands meant that it faced a war against a far more powerful nation.

The Argentinian junta also underestimated the global response. The United Nations passed a resolution condemning the Argentinian invasion and demanding that Argentina withdraw its military forces. This gave the British government the diplomatic cover it needed to claim that it was exercising its right to self-defense.

European states mostly supported Britain and imposed sanctions and prohibited the sale of arms to Argentina. These sanctions were particularly problematic for the junta as its best defense against the British task force was Exocet anti-ship missiles from France. The Argentinian military was in the process of upgrading its air force with Exocet missiles and French aircraft, but it possessed an extremely limited stock of the missiles and the Super Etendard planes capable of launching them.

Most significantly, the military junta had expected the United States to remain neutral in a conflict with the United Kingdom because of the junta’s anti-communist stance. However, while the U.S. did not get directly involved in the war, it provided significant logistical support to the British, including missiles, fuel, intelligence, secure communication links from military satellites, and the use of American military facilities and supplies on Ascension Island, which became a key staging area for the British taskforce. In contrast, Argentina received only limited support from some Latin American states.

Overall, Argentina’s diplomatic isolation following the invasion was a significant factor in its ultimate defeat in the Falklands War.

Argentina’s Failure to Achieve Naval and Air Superiority 

The Argentinian commanders knew their land forces, which were primarily made up of conscript soldiers, would be no match for the professional British forces in a pitched battle on the Falkland Islands. It was therefore necessary that the British task force be stopped before it reached the Falklands and British soldiers were able to land. Unfortunately for the junta, the Argentinian fleet was no match for the Royal Navy. Most of the Argentinian navy’s surface ships were vintage World War II-era vessels including, ironically, several former Royal Navy vessels that had been sold to Argentina after the war.

The inability of the Argentinian fleet to grapple with the Royal Navy was demonstrated on May 2, 1982, when the British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror sank the Argentinian light cruiser ARA General Belgrano (formerly the USS Phoenix, which was launched in the 1930s). The sinking demonstrated the vulnerability of the Argentinian fleet to the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarines. Following the sinking, the Argentinian surface fleet returned to port for the duration of the conflict. While Argentina possessed a few modern diesel-powered submarines, these failed to make any successful attacks on the British task force.

Moreover, Argentinian air sorties against the British task force needed to be launched from the Argentinian mainland as the runway at Port Stanley on the Falkland Islands was too short to accommodate most military jets. Port Stanley had also proved vulnerable to British bombing raids.

The Argentinian’s inability to use the Falkland Islands as a base for their fighter aircraft was a critical oversight. The distance between the Argentinian mainland and the Falklands, roughly 400 miles, meant that Argentinian planes only had enough fuel to spend minutes in combat operations before needing to return to Argentina. Nonetheless, Argentina’s aviators put up a determined resistance and inflicted severe damage on the British task force. In particular, the Super Etendards of the Argentinian Navy, armed with Exocet anti-ship missiles, wreaked havoc on the British task force during their brief sorties over the fleet.

On May 4, 1982, just two days after the sinking of the General Belgrano, the Argentinians struck back with a successful Exocet missile strike on the guided missile destroyer HMS Sheffield, which sank a few days later under tow. As the British task force drew closer to the Falklands, the Argentinian air attacks increased, including the use of conventional bombs, and Argentinian pilots were successful in sinking an additional guided missile destroyer and two frigates.

However, these air attacks were not without cost, and the fighter jets carried on the HMS Hermes and the HMS Invincible, combined with the anti-aircraft armament of the ships in the task force, inflicted significant damage on Argentina’s air forces.

Crucially, Argentina was never able to locate the two British aircraft carriers and launch a successful strike upon them, which may have allowed Argentina to achieve air superiority over the Falklands. By the end of May 1982, Argentina had expended its last Exocet missile and, due to sanctions, it was unable to obtain a further supply of the missiles from France.

Ultimately, Argentina’s air forces were unable to obtain superiority over the Falklands’ air space. Nonetheless, the Argentinians inflicted a startling amount of damage on the superior Royal Navy. In post-war reviews, some in the British military noted the Royal Navy’s lack of effective anti-missile defense and argued that if Argentina had been better supplied with Exocet missiles, Britain may have lost the war.

Argentina’s failure to achieve naval or air superiority around the Falklands meant that on May 21, 1982, the British task force was able to conduct successful landings of British land forces on the Falklands. While the Argentinian forces fought bravely, the outcome was never in doubt once the British were able to disembark their professional soldiers, and on June 14, 1982, the last Argentinian forces on the Falkland Islands surrendered. South Georgia had been recaptured by the British earlier in the campaign.

Fallout of the Falklands War

The defeat in the Falklands War fatally undermined the junta’s credibility with the Argentinian people, and within a year democratic government was restored in Argentina.

Across the ocean, the British victory propelled Prime Minister Thatcher to new heights of popularity, and her government was re-elected in a landslide in the 1983 British election.

To this day, Argentina continues to assert its sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, but there is no indication that it would ever again attempt to resolve the dispute through military force.

*The islands are referred to as the Falkland Islands throughout, but this terminology is not meant to express an opinion on Argentina’s or the United Kingdom’s competing claims.