Could anyone explain why exactly Britain was perfectly willing to go to war over this

because china has nukes you cockshitter

Than UK would need to give up HK to Taiwan. Imagine the shit storm.

>hurrr killing hundreds of millions of innocent people would be way better than killing 3000 innocent people

>Argentina had basically no ability to fight back.

This isn't true actually.

Argentina had bad luck with dud bombs. They could have won if not for that.

Eh Taiwan wasn't (also isn't) really recognised by anyone as a legitimate state, so if Britain made that claim it would have to change a great deal of its foreign policy.

Really where they fucked up was giving back the concessions.

>Argentina could have won if it wasn't for dud bombs
The fuck? The Argies were so strapped for equipment that they were flying trainer jets with weapons bolted to them.

>giving it to commie china not true china
plz

The airforce were pure madmen. They managed to score at least 10 other hits on ships, but since the bombs were being used in a fashion they were not designed for they didn't explode, thus saving the task force

>Argentina had bad luck with dud bombs
If you could simply blow up the eternal anglo, they wouldn't really be eternal, would they?

>innocent people
>Chinese

Wrong

>The fuck? The Argies were so strapped for equipment that they were flying trainer jets with weapons bolted to them.

Argentina had a pretty decent air force at the time. Yes, they were at a disadvantage but they still could have won. They managed to hit several British warships, but the bombs didn't go off properly. If those bombs had gone off as intended, we'd be calling it the Las Malvinas war instead of the Falklands war.

I subscribe to the theory that the bombs didn't work properly because they were designed to be used against ground targets. When they were used against ships, they over penetrated and went straight through the ship without exploding.

>chinks

>people
>innocent

Honor.

>Argies throw a bunch of 16 year olds with WW2-era equipement to "re"take those god forsaken islands

That was some North Korea-tier madness.

there's also the fact that falklanders wanted to remain part of the empire while hong kongers wanted to be a part of china, because I'm sure they'll respect our autonomy, totally totally sure.

Not going for full independence when they had the chance was such an incredible mistake. They could have been like Singapore.

pretty much just this

The Chinese didnt start an invasion making the brits look like complete clowns. Argies got arrogant and forced the brits to react with force or lose face to any other similar claim.

>hong kongers wanted to be a part of china

what

And get nuked in return?

Last I checked Hong Kongers are incredibly bitter they got left to be taken ower by retarded communists.

>initially
>refused to even think about Chinese communists for 50 years
>initially

The PRC was recognized by all UN security council members in 1972 as the inheritor of the Qing Empire and the only "China".

>Incorrect
[Citation needed]

In 1997 the UK recognized the PRC as the rightful inheritor of the Qing Empire and its treaties.

"initially" being the key word
Now, the US recognizes the PRC as China

...

The Chinese had, and to some extend still have, very little second strike capability.

No early warning radar. Nukes need to be fueled before they can be launched.

>while hong kongers wanted to be a part of china,

>Chinese
>people
>willingly letting part of your country be subjugated when you have the ability not to

pure degeneracy

Can you explain how the UK's 4 nuclear submarines would sail all the way across the world and nuke enough of China to stop its ICBM's?

You are a fucking retard.

America itself would have cockblocked the UK, and it did by standing by China on the HK issue.

They were not in 1997.

Remember, the Umbrella protests failed miserably. The majority of HKers vote for the pro-Beijing party.

Mind finding a source stating the contrary?

(You)

>explain how the UK's nuclear submarines would sail all the way across the world

Simple.

They're nuclear submarines.

They generate their own thrust, air, and water.

Just sail them shits in and hit all of the ICBM sites and air force bases you can.

Most of China's ICBMs in 1997 couldn't even hit the UK. They might get Hong Kong, but death is better than communism.

Oh right, its just that one butthurt sinoboo.

>ITT: /pol/tards display a complete lack of understanding on the subject of International Relations theory

>he thinks that /pol/acks strict adherence to Realism is a lack of understanding
Lol

>Implying anyone has tried a nuke first ask questions later policy in international relations.

Britain took the Realist approach in NOT defending Hong Kong you nutter. /pol/acks don't understand why the UK gave it up.

They literally advocate threatening another country with nukes.

I'm a Realist myself and /pol/ has zero knowledge on the subject.

We did

Remember, the last couple of times America was debating whether to nuke someone and didn't, it was a mistake.

If we'd busted out the canned sunshine during the Berlin Blockade, the world would be a dramatically better place.

>Britain took the Realist approach in NOT defending Hong Kong you nutter
It was a Liberal approach, not a Realist one.

>They literally advocate threatening another country with nukes
Nuclear deterrence is a huge realist standpoint.

>I'm a Realist myself and /pol/ has zero knowledge on the subject
Apparently, it is you that has no understanding of IR theory. Did you take Intro to IR and skip most of the classes and proclaim yourself an expert or what?

Kennedy was unable to go through with it though. Lemay was absolutely begging Kennedy to let him bomb Cuba to oblivion during the Missile Crisis and Kennedy wouldn't allow it.

>tfw we didn;t listen to Macarthur
>tfw the feds were too busy harassing oppenhiemer to check up on karls fuchs and co
s m h

Why is his sword Chile?

>tfw the world objectively became worse because of some limpdick pretty boy fuck up from Massoftwoshits

Realism doesn't imply you go to blows over every event. The UK understood that strategically it would have literally no hope in defending the area, especially when after the lease on their mainland holdings ended, all it would have left was Hong Kong Island itself.

Seeing that it is a realist approach to defend a nation's survival and allocate resources in the most efficient way possible (in terms of national defense), the cons far outweighed the pros of defending Hong Kong from a rabidly nationalistic PRC.

On the concept of nuclear deterrence, and if you have studied IR, you'll know that after 1989, no Western country would dare to threaten another country with the use of nuclear force lest it receive massive backlash at home and the Western community at large.

The world is not a Grand Strategy game and things are not carried out "for muh pride". It a series of strategic calculations which weighs up the pros and cons and what would be irresponsible and what wouldn't in relation to a countries survival and sovereignty.

possibly, but I think things worked out alright without killing hundreds of millions of civilians (and losing millions of our own)

Hey, if we'd done it in '48 everything would have worked out fine.

There was really no hope of keeping Hong Kong away from China.

Britain leveraged the transfer of Hong Kong to the PRC under the benefits of mutual cooperation and benefit which is a liberal standpoint, not a realist one. This was literally Thatcher's point on the matter. That both countries could benefit from the transfer. Most of the concession was made over talks of economics, not force.

>you'll know that after 1989, no Western country would dare to threaten another country with the use of nuclear force lest it receive massive backlash at home and the Western community at large
The U.S. just threatened North Korea with nuclear bombing not even two weeks ago.

I'm not claiming there was. I'm disputing user's interpretation of the event.

>I subscribe to the theory that the bombs didn't work properly because they were designed to be used against ground targets
Except that's wrong, you fucking retard.
They didn't go off because the pilots were flying too low for the fuses to engage. Had they flown high enough to engage the fuses they'd have been blown out of the sky.

>The majority of HKers vote for the pro-Beijing party.

No. Only mainland niggers brought in by Beijing vote for the pro-Beijing party.

...

>muh empire

Britain has always been a coward nation
Going to war against Argentigger isnt the same as against Modern China

>The situation now is the same as it was back then
There's protests to return to British rule now because they believe they could become independent more easily. Hong Kong doesn't really want to be ruled by anyone.

5 vs 2

Vs

5 vs 7

>innocent people willing to destroy the entire island via nuke

Jesus Christ, as someone who takes an actual interest in the Falklands War this thread is abysmal. The circumstances between Hong Kong and Falklands were wildly different. This is all available on the fucking Wikipedia.

Before the Falklands War, the British government had entered negotiations / talks with the Argentine government of the possibility for handing over governance to Argentina. This gave signals to the Junta that Britain, which had/was experiencing seriously political/strategic/cultural/economical decline was not willing nor capable to defend the Islands.

The Junta looking for a quick political victory given their own political instability, without major diplomatic fallout, took the opportunity to invade when the only Royal Navy vessel was distracted dealing with scrap merchants to prevent hostilities.

The Argentine forces were small, but a modern, competent force. Equipped with a mixture of western equipment (including British warships) because fuggin commies :D:D:D:D::D

The British forces, also being modern, competent force had a focus on anti-submarine warfare (excluding land components in Germany) guarding the GIUK gap against the Russia submarine forces.

The one problem was that the Junta had placed the Iron Lady's back against the wall with the invasion, which is the one thing you didn't do. This was truly a test of the British armed forces. Despite the Army, RAF and the US Navy say this would be an impossible task. The British task force was still assembled and launched.

Both nations fought well, given the circumstance. The Falklands War remains the first and if not most major naval Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) conflict this side of history.

At the strategic level, there's no such thing as innocent people, only countervalue targets.

Malvinas is a strategic location over the Cape Horn and also for projection to Antarctica, in an eventual future division of that continent

>Both nations fought well, given the circumstance.

Post-sending-the-fleet : was there any point form Argentina to fight this war?

Who knows, it might have bought the Junta more time.

they should have made runways to operate fighters and bombers, also mining the strait between the islands and coordinate actions between army, navy and airforce (each force fought their own war separately)
oh and use working ordenance

>It was a Liberal approach, not a Realist one.
>ok lets just go to war with a country with the largest standing army in the world over a city that we in fact promised to give back 100 years ago in a legally binding treaty just because they are commies.

I can't even begin to point out how stupid this idea is, not to mention the international backlash that would have occured.

A lot of people don't get that the cold war had a large propoganda element to it. Or, /pol/ doesn't get that the cold war had a large propaganda element to it.

Ok say they did all this and Argentina had the equivalent of Major Katsuragi at the helm - was the force realistically going to be sufficient to deter British ambitions?

I mean looking at the list of casualties they destroyed 2 destroyers and 2 frigates - but surely 4 or 5 times the sinkings (incl a carrier) would have been required?

I´d say they would have a fair chance to force negotiations at least.
Another thing was they had only a handful of exocet missiles. If only they had waited a few months they would have received more from France (they had ordered at least 24 missiles)

>I mean looking at the list of casualties they destroyed 2 destroyers and 2 frigates - but surely 4 or 5 times the sinkings (incl a carrier) would have been required?

The air attacks at the bay leading to the of the two frigates and one destroyer was a mistake. They should have only focused on the transports. Not the escorts. The Argentines fell for the bait.

The sinking of HMS Sheffield was due to having her radar is in a state that prevent it from being fully operational.

The SS Atlantic Conveyor, was not a carrier. It would be more apt to call her a aircraft/supplies transporter.

>received more from France

You see, this is exactly the perfideousness I'm talking about.

Agreed.

My god would I watch Falkland War : The Anime.

Call it like

Iron Lady Island Rumble

or like

Falkland Fight Turbo X Horizon

or like

Fate of Heroic Sheep Peoples No Sakura

or some shit.

Argies can't use bombs properly

'no but u see if the bombs had magically worked outside their operating parameters argentina would totally have won onest'

>tfw the man who gutted TAC and led to USAF underperforming in Vietnam is worshipped on Veeky Forums

he had the edgy factor

France and the UK had agreed to stop the delivery of Exocets during the conflict (most of the west was co-operating with the UK during the war, the USA even offered to lend them an amphibious assault ship)

>[Citation needed]

Nukes

that's what I want to know too

> U.S. just threatened North Korea with nuclear bombing not even two weeks ago

What? Citation fucking needed.

only thing I've found is the U.S. recently threatening 'severe consequences' if the Norks keep going with their nuclear programy and saying that they cannot allow NK as a nuclear power. That's a long fucking way from 'hurr durr do what we say or we're gonna nuke u' though.

theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/17/us-threatens-north-korea-with-severe-consequences-if-it-flouts-nuclear-ban?0p19G=c

"NUKE THE GOMMIES :DDDDDDD" is all the /pol/ faction cares about.

This.

They did an awful lot of things wrong since the capture of the islands. One of them was not working on those fuses once figured that extremely low altitude attack bombing, in order to avoid radar lock on, would the norm for the Argentinian Air Force against the english ships. Not mining the landing areas was another massive fuck up, as well as not building an air strip in Malvinas where jets could operate from. The army deployment there was also terribly planned with for the most part conscripts with inadequate equipment and terribly bad deployed and etc.

In spite of all this the Air Force fought with extreme bravery and Argentina could have perfectly won if not for all the blunders.

"I could stroll in and take the whole place in one afternoon."
>Iron
>Lady

/leftypol/ butthurt over pinochet's helicopter meme

>Argentina could have perfectly won if not for all the blunders.

"They could have won except that they did losing things and so lost" is an argument that never gets old. I guess at least it means they weren't so outgunned that they never even had a chance?

>"They could have won except that they did losing things and so lost" is an argument that never gets old.

That's probably because it is basically true. If Argentina had known about the bomb fuses a little bit earlier in the war, it could have made a big difference.

China holds all of Hong Kong's water supply. If the UK refused China could literally just turn off the tap.

Turning off the water in a place so densely populated would cause thousands of deaths within days.

This is China we're talking about.

Fighting a third world country with outdated equipment.
or
Fighting a powerful country with nukes.

Such a difficult decision.

muh we wuz empire

basically the same reason they voted for brexit and will be a 3rd wold country in a few years.

>someone says something I think is stupid
>call them /pol/
>that'll show em
??

Some people wondered which country's shape would make a good weapon