“We were and are the one major European power that DIDNT need it. Not in 1950, not in 1980, not in 2012.”
You might have been able to defend the Falklands in 1950, but you couldn’t in 1980 on your own, and it is only the more ineffective Argentines that give you a comparative advantage in 2012 - and you’re not going to leave the island essentially undefended as you did in 1982.
30 ships is not enough for an island nation to defend itself, much less project power to defend interests.
We’re headed there ourselves, but it’ll take at least a decade before we see hints of the Royal Navy’s level of incapability in the US Navy.
1-—American help in 1982 has been grossly exaggerated.
Not one ship of the Task Force was American. America gave Britain millions of tons of fuel from Ascension Island, but it was still a small percentage of the fuel used by us. Also please remember the island is British and leased to you. The biggest American help was in fact satellite intelligence. Britain also received substantial logistical support from South Africa (fuel/repairs/supplies), as well as Chile. Britain also REJECTED Weinberger’s offer of a US carrier. As it wasnt needed.
Sorry, but the idea that Britain needed America in order to win in 1982 is not remotely true. We thank you for your help, but such help since has been exaggerated into a myth that it was crucial and that wed have lost without it.
2—The islands since 1982 are armed to the teeth. Any landing now would get mauled by the garrison there.
p.s my references to 1950 and 1980 were actually about the UK defending itself from the USSR and British military strength worldwide at those times.