Milei: Falkland Islands Will Return to Argentina
Buenos Aires, backed by Washington, is also eyeing control of much of Antarctica
From Ukraine to Gaza, from the Taiwan Strait to the South China Sea, there is certainly no shortage of war zones and tensions on Earth. And there is always someone looking to add more. Again and again.
This time it was Argentina’s President Javier Milei, who put on his armor – currently made of cardboard – and promised his people and the world that “the Malvinas Islands, the Falkland Islands for Britain, will return to Argentina.”
Exactly 42 years ago, on April 12, 1982, the late British Queen Elizabeth II declared a maritime exclusion zone covering a circle with a radius of 200 nautical miles from the center of the Falkland Islands. As a result, any Argentine-flagged warship or auxiliary vessel, if it entered the area, could be attacked by British nuclear submarines. Thus began the most acute phase of the Falklands War or Malvinas War (English: Falklands War; Spanish: Guerra de las Malvinas), a military conflict fought from April to June 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom for control and possession of the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, and the South Sandwich Islands.
In his plan to regain control of the Falkland Islands, Milei is counting on US assistance. During his recent visit to Tierra del Fuego, Milei announced the imminent arrival of a US military base in the territory. With this initiative, Milei challenged the geopolitical status quo that emerged from the 1982 conflict and reaffirmed the islands as Her Majesty’s overseas territory.
And while Milei repeated that he did not want any armed conflict – “the Falklands will return to Argentina through diplomatic channels,” the Argentine president declared – many political observers questioned Milei’s “peaceful” intentions, recalling the program aimed at strengthening the South American country’s military capabilities, including the purchase of 24 F-16s. Milei’s foreign policy is based on increasingly close and widespread ties with the USA and Israel. In this controversy, Milei decided to move Argentina’s embassy headquarters from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, rejecting criticism and ignoring concerns about the safety of diplomatic personnel.
But Milei’s plans seem to go much further: for the Argentine president, the Falklands represent a “gateway” to Antarctica: the white continent attracts much attention from the superpowers and risks becoming a battleground between the USA, Russia, China, Australia, and now Argentina.