The government has confirmed it regularly reviews the military posture in the Falkland Islands and is satisfied the current level of forces is appropriate to defend them, following a parliamentary question asking whether a recent security review had been undertaken.
Conservative MP Geoffrey Cox asked whether the Secretary of State had undertaken a recent review of the security and defence of the Falkland Islands and what steps were planned to improve preparedness.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary Al Carns said the UK’s position on the islands was long-standing, that “sovereignty rests with the UK, and the Islanders’ right of self-determination is paramount.”
Carns confirmed that as set out in the Strategic Defence Review, a core role for defence was the protection of the UK’s overseas territories, which included “maintaining a defensive military posture in the Falkland Islands consisting of air, land and maritime forces.” He said the posture was reviewed regularly “to ensure it reflects all relevant developments” and that he was “confident that our current military presence is at the appropriate level to ensure the defence of the Islands.”
The question comes against a backdrop of renewed Argentine calls for sovereignty negotiations, which the UK government has repeatedly rejected, and a broader period of heightened attention to the islands following a leaked Pentagon memo last month that suggested the United States could reassess its diplomatic support for British sovereignty as part of wider pressure on NATO allies.
Well at least 3662 British Citizens are adequately defended then. 😎
As I understand it the Argentinian military is in an even worse state than ours, so it shouldn’t take a huge amount of hardware to properly defend it.
It thought the defences were adequate iin early 1982 as well.
Strangely, despite 30 odd years of defence cuts, it still thinks that the UK is adequately defended,, …. ” biggest defence uplift……. meeting all NATO commitments…… increasing lethality…….” etc.
Meanwhile……
Well that fills me with confidence, nothing this Government says is ever true, lets hope the defences are never tested that would be better for every one, rather than relying on bluff and defection
Instead of the ‘what ifs’ actually look at the state of the Argie military AT the moment and can anyone see an invasion by sea or air occurring? The defence of the islands in 82 were a troop of RM and Endurance an ice patrol ship,compare that with now and with an Argentina that does not possess the capability as it did then!
As for US support in sovereignty they can FO it’s bugger all to do with them!just more tiresome crap from Hegseth and co!
Meanwhile the US does more of Pootins bidding by withdrawing 5000 more troops from Germany🙄
I agree, there are actually very few militaries in the world with the ability to over come the sky Sabre and four typhoons operating in the Falklands and an amphibious landing today in the face of UK forces armed with Javelin and NLAW would be suicidal.
Even a small number of wildcats moved to the island which can be done in 48 hours via C17 would be deadly to any task force, our wildcats practice this exact mission around Norway all the time and sea venom can mission kill any naval assets Argentina has.
As we seen in Ukraine in 2022 where British intelligence knew that Russia was going to invade before most parts of the Russian military knew it would be very difficult for Argentina to do anything without us knowing and even just a weeks notice might see an Astute class submarine patrolling in the waters of the South Atlantic able to take out an entire navy on her own.
There are probably no more than a handful of militaries in the world able to overcome the Falklands defences and none in South America and only one in the western hemisphere.
In terms of retaking the islands the UK is in a far better position than it was in 1982 with two large deck carriers able to operate large numbers of fits generation aircraft and helicopters and three large amphibious ships.
The UK also has a deep strike capability with around 70 TLAM’s that could devastate any Argentine airbase at will.
And once ashore the army and marines have access to deployable weapon systems like M270 and Apache for fire support and sky Sabre for GBAD and the world’s second largest fleet of chinooks for logistics.
Hi Jim and folks hope all is well.
Agree Jim, there are few nations that have the reach and capabilities to take the Falklands again. I’m no expert as you and many on this site, but from my knowledge it would be a hard slog for Argentina to have a go again. Even if we looked as if the UKs forces were in trouble, I’m confident we could despatch reinforcements.
One article I was just reading in Defence Blog was about Argentina acquiring air tankers to support the F16’s. I’ve copied a clip from the article below:
Argentina’s Air Force chief has confirmed the service is actively pursuing two Boeing KC-135R Stratotanker aerial refueling aircraft, a capability acquisition that would directly extend the combat reach of the F-16AM/BM Fighting Falcons Argentina is already in the process of receiving.
Cheers
George
Hi George, I seen that one as well. Argentina will be hard pressed to get two KC135 from the US and the aircraft is a training and maintenance nightmare for a small force of two using the probe system for refuelling.
Definitely something for the UK to keep an eye on but also an easy day one target for TLAM in a shooting war.
We’d see them coming, even more than in 82 I’d think.
Think I remember something similar being said in 1982.
So surveillance and intelligence gathering have not moved on in 40 odd years? Never heard the the saying ‘once bitten twice shy’?
Plus, we have cyber warfare
We did seen them coming in 82, RM commandos were on the beach opposing them. However in 1982 there was no large airport at Stanley and no British transport aircraft that could fly there from Ascension. Reinforcing the islands required ships to sail.