Falklands: Papers Show Rare Friction for Thatcher and Reagan

Started by Caliga, December 28, 2012, 10:25:25 PM

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derspiess

Quote from: Maximus on April 02, 2013, 02:31:54 PM
Haven't read the whole thread, so perhaps it's been brought up, but didn't the US provide supplies, fuel perhaps? to Ascension?

If we did, we obviously weren't enthusiastic enough about it.
"If you can play a guitar and harmonica at the same time, like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, you're a genius. But make that extra bit of effort and strap some cymbals to your knees, suddenly people want to get the hell away from you."  --Rich Hall

Valmy

Quote from: derspiess on April 02, 2013, 02:39:18 PM
Quote from: Maximus on April 02, 2013, 02:31:54 PM
Haven't read the whole thread, so perhaps it's been brought up, but didn't the US provide supplies, fuel perhaps? to Ascension?

If we did, we obviously weren't enthusiastic enough about it.

Eh why should we have supported the Brits?  I think the best we could have offered them was neutrality.  We are not going to forsake South America for a few islands.
Quote"This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed & unnecessary victims. Otherwise, you'll be bombed."

Zmiinyi defenders: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself."

MadImmortalMan

I guess it makes the Argie decision to occupy the islands seem slightly less insane. But not much.
"Stability is destabilizing." --Hyman Minsky

"Complacency can be a self-denying prophecy."
"We have nothing to fear but lack of fear itself." --Larry Summers

derspiess

Quote from: Valmy on April 02, 2013, 02:43:33 PM
Quote from: derspiess on April 02, 2013, 02:39:18 PM
Quote from: Maximus on April 02, 2013, 02:31:54 PM
Haven't read the whole thread, so perhaps it's been brought up, but didn't the US provide supplies, fuel perhaps? to Ascension?

If we did, we obviously weren't enthusiastic enough about it.

Eh why should we have supported the Brits?  I think the best we could have offered them was neutrality.  We are not going to forsake South America for a few islands.

Missed my point.  I was being sarcastic.
"If you can play a guitar and harmonica at the same time, like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, you're a genius. But make that extra bit of effort and strap some cymbals to your knees, suddenly people want to get the hell away from you."  --Rich Hall

Sheilbh

Quote from: MadImmortalMan on April 02, 2013, 02:53:03 PM
I guess it makes the Argie decision to occupy the islands seem slightly less insane. But not much.
I don't think the Argies were that mad. I think chances are any other post-war PM would've accepted the fait accompli. Maggie was told by most of her military advisers that an invasion wasn't feasible; the Foreign Office supported negotiation with the goal of joint sovereignty; the US and the wets in her cabinet supported a few peace plans that were presented. Given all of that I think most PMs would have tried to look for a face-saving way out of conflict.

It was Maggie's brilliant madness that led to the British response.
Let's bomb Russia!

Sheilbh

Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 02, 2013, 11:49:54 AM
Yes, France took its military much more seriously than the average NATO member.  But compare the size and quality of the French military with that of Germany before the collapse of the Warsaw Pact.  Germany shows that strutting and posturing are not prerequisites to military capability.
Germany's a bad example because they don't have overseas interests and, even if they did, they probably wouldn't respond militarily given their history.

But if you look at Germany, their entire defence policy was based on Germany playing a specific role in a NATO-led conflict. It was never meant to be capable of operating independently which is precisely what de Gaulle wanted for France and Britain needed in the Falklands. If Germany needed to take action somewhere in the post-war era she wouldn't have been able without NATO support.

Valmy is right. Your argument is more Gaullist than de Gaulle. The entire post-war West assumed they'd be fighting each other's wars and integrating their forces. For the US they will always need a military that's capable of intervening anywhere at any given time. For Europe, given our budgets, it's a choice of do we have forces to play a specific allied role or a more national force that can act anywhere. The US and most European nations always argued for more specialisation so that our forces fit together - but practically couldn't act alone. De Gaulle's policy was shown in those two famous remarks that 'men have friends, statesmen can't' and that 'there's no international reality, only national realities'.

QuoteI have yet to hear why De Gaulle, if he was reacting out of some sort of desire to prove his country's might, did he release the empire en masse?  Why did he basically risk his life to do that?
He was a nationalist, not an imperialist- his priority was to save France. It's one of those interesting contradictions of de Gaulle. Just like that he was a devout Catholic who institutionalised the secular Republic. A conservative officer from a monarchist family who made the Republican tradition right-wing. A great nationalist who withdrew from empire and helped build Europe.
Let's bomb Russia!

grumbler

Quote from: Valmy on April 02, 2013, 11:16:35 AM
The Gaullist critique is based on the idea we should be relied upon to live up to our obligations so Europe should try to take care of itself.  Just because it is obvious and good sense that they should do this does not make it meaningless.  And many countries rely on the US, or others, to fight their own wars and have for centuries so I do not understand that part.

The problem with the Gaullist Critique is that it applies as much to Britain depending on France as it does "Europe" depending on the US.  It is a simple restatement of the idea that no country can rely on another country to act against its own self-interest.  Not much of a "critique."
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

Admiral Yi

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 02, 2013, 03:37:04 PM
But if you look at Germany, their entire defence policy was based on Germany playing a specific role in a NATO-led conflict. It was never meant to be capable of operating independently which is precisely what de Gaulle wanted for France and Britain needed in the Falklands.

No argument so far.  Now show me how this leads to "the Gaullist critique," then how the Gaullist critique applies to the Falklands.

Sheilbh

Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 02, 2013, 03:44:09 PM
No argument so far.  Now show me how this leads to "the Gaullist critique," then how the Gaullist critique applies to the Falklands.
We're not going to agree. Your view is that Gaullism is a bitter act of pique by a vainglorious man. Mine is that it was a realist policy based on nation-states, in opposition to the general internationalist and idealist mood in the west during the post-war.
Let's bomb Russia!

Valmy

Quote from: grumbler on April 02, 2013, 03:43:50 PM
The problem with the Gaullist Critique is that it applies as much to Britain depending on France as it does "Europe" depending on the US.  It is a simple restatement of the idea that no country can rely on another country to act against its own self-interest.  Not much of a "critique."

Yes.  And why is that a problem with it?  Nobody said it was a complicated idea.
Quote"This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed & unnecessary victims. Otherwise, you'll be bombed."

Zmiinyi defenders: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself."

Valmy

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 02, 2013, 03:50:55 PM
He was a nationalist, not an imperialist- his priority was to save France. It's one of those interesting contradictions of de Gaulle. Just like that he was a devout Catholic who institutionalised the secular Republic. A conservative officer from a monarchist family who made the Republican tradition right-wing. A great nationalist who withdrew from empire and helped build Europe.

Yep.
Quote"This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed & unnecessary victims. Otherwise, you'll be bombed."

Zmiinyi defenders: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself."

Admiral Yi

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 02, 2013, 03:50:55 PM
We're not going to agree. Your view is that Gaullism is a bitter act of pique by a vainglorious man. Mine is that it was a realist policy based on nation-states, in opposition to the general internationalist and idealist mood in the west during the post-war.

If it was just a realist policy, why the critique in Gaullist critique?  It's not a value-free word you know.  It suggests a failing.

Sheilbh

Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 02, 2013, 03:54:59 PM
If it was just a realist policy, why the critique in Gaullist critique?  It's not a value-free word you know.  It suggests a failing.
What? :blink:
Let's bomb Russia!

Syt

It appears Yi is confusing critique and criticism. His reading comprehension seems weak recently.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Proud owner of 42 Zoupa Points.

garbon

Quote from: Valmy on April 02, 2013, 03:53:39 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 02, 2013, 03:50:55 PM
He was a nationalist, not an imperialist- his priority was to save France. It's one of those interesting contradictions of de Gaulle. Just like that he was a devout Catholic who institutionalised the secular Republic. A conservative officer from a monarchist family who made the Republican tradition right-wing. A great nationalist who withdrew from empire and helped build Europe.

Yep.

What a lovely bit of de Gaulle worship.
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.