Imperialistic Argentina once more extends its soiled talons

[patches70]

Basically, this is a story where ARG declares its own sovereignty and claims lands which its military could not prevent foreign armed forces from taking. The question becomes: "is right by conquest legitimate?"

Given history, the answer to that question is a resounding "yes".....

Think of it this way: if my friends and I busted into your family's house, shot your parents and asked them to leave, would I then have a legitimate claim to your property?

In the absence of any police or governing body to intervene and I lack the will to kill you and your bushwacking friends? Yep, the property is now yours. At least until someone else comes along and takes the house from you and your friends.....

Wait, why do your parents lose their legitimate claim to their property if they lack effective enough means of rightfully reclaiming it?

If you have a legitimate claim to property, it's still your property until you voluntarily exchange the property rights to someone else. Exchanges made under duress aren't legitimate; otherwise, there would be no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate...

You can make whatever laws, contracts or agreements you want, but if you don't have the ability or the will to back up those claims with force, then you don't really have anything, do you?

In society, we have courts, police and such. When nations start squabbling over territories, which ever side has the military and the will to use it will end up with that territory and then call it "legal" after the fact.

Just sayin' is all, the use of force has been used throughout history to solve these little problems over territory. The contracts and property rights you speak of are enforced and maintained by the threat of force by police at the order of courts.

Does not the US hold the Philippines, Guam (hell, even Hawaii) and other holdings that were obtain through conquering?
Did not England have vast territories through conquer back in the day? Israel with the West Bank, won through spoils of war? That conquering by it's very act makes the claim "legitimate".
Is not the UK ignoring the supposed "lawful body" that has ordered them to the negotiating table? What good is the UN making decrees if they lack the will or the ability to back up their decrees with force?

Violence, solving disputes since man first walked upright.
Force, the will and ability to use it, is the basis for which all things are "legitimate".

[saxitoxin]

Basically, this is a story where ARG declares its own sovereignty and claims lands which its military could not prevent foreign armed forces from taking. The question becomes: "is right by conquest legitimate?"

Given history, the answer to that question is a resounding "yes".....

Think of it this way: if my friends and I busted into your family's house, shot your parents and asked them to leave, would I then have a legitimate claim to your property?

In the absence of any police or governing body to intervene and I lack the will to kill you and your bushwacking friends? Yep, the property is now yours. At least until someone else comes along and takes the house from you and your friends.....

Wait, why do your parents lose their legitimate claim to their property if they lack effective enough means of rightfully reclaiming it?

If you have a legitimate claim to property, it's still your property until you voluntarily exchange the property rights to someone else. Exchanges made under duress aren't legitimate; otherwise, there would be no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate...

You can make whatever laws, contracts or agreements you want, but if you don't have the ability or the will to back up those claims with force, then you don't really have anything, do you?

In society, we have courts, police and such. When nations start squabbling over territories, which ever side has the military and the will to use it will end up with that territory and then call it "legal" after the fact.

Just sayin' is all, the use of force has been used throughout history to solve these little problems over territory. The contracts and property rights you speak of are enforced and maintained by the threat of force by police at the order of courts.

Does not the US hold the Philippines, Guam (hell, even Hawaii) and other holdings that were obtain through conquering?
Did not England have vast territories through conquer back in the day? Israel with the West Bank, won through spoils of war? That conquering by it's very act makes the claim "legitimate".
Is not the UK ignoring the supposed "lawful body" that has ordered them to the negotiating table? What good is the UN making decrees if they lack the will or the ability to back up their decrees with force?

Violence, solving disputes since man first walked upright.
Force, the will and ability to use it, is the basis for which all things are "legitimate".

I agree with Patches. South America should forcibly retake Las Malvinas after giving a 90 days final offer of negotiation to the UK regime. Both of the principal British military officers during the '82 conflict say the UK is unable to launch a defense anymore so this should be able to be accomplished with minimal destruction.

[GreecePwns]

What of rights, then? Do they exist? Or can they be merely taken away by force?

And Sym, yes I was trolling, but there's some credibility in my trolling as opposed "I DISAGREE WITH YOU AND YOURE ALL NAZIS!!!!!one!!!!"

[saxitoxin]

¡EJERCITO ARGENTINO!


vs.

british army

[Symmetry]

What of rights, then? Do they exist? Or can they be merely taken away by force?

And Sym, yes I was trolling, but there's some credibility in my trolling as opposed "I DISAGREE WITH YOU AND YOURE ALL NAZIS!!!!!one!!!!"

Thanks for saying that GP. It was a decent thing to admit. I've never thought that you were simply trolling for no reason, just that your main concern- the situation of Greek Cypriots, with which I am largely sympathetic, was misdirected when you applied it to the Falkland Islanders.

[patches70]

What of rights, then? Do they exist? Or can they be merely taken away by force?

Consider, GreecePwns, the US Constitution and all the "rights" we in the US enjoy. How is it that we came about having them?

Had the Founding Fathers lost the Revolution they would have been hung from the gallows and with their deaths so would have died the Declaration and our supposed "rights".

All rights are ultimately won on the battlefield. Once won, those rights can be passed down to future generations, but to gain those rights in the first place it takes force.
You can claim rights come from God, or a piece of paper, but when a fellow puts a gun in your face God ain't gonna save you and that piece of paper won't stop that bullet. You have to be prepared to defend your rights.

Take BBS example, he and his buddies kill my parents and take their house, has my property rights been lost? Let's say "no", then what am I to do about it? Should I go to BBS and say "Oh, legally this property is rightfully mine. You and your friends will have to leave now". If he tells me to piss off, then what? Wave a piece of paper in his face?

If there are police I'd call them and they would use force to uphold my property rights by taking BBS and his buddies under arrest, if they resisted the police would just shoot them. Application of force both.
Without the benefit of police, army or anyone else to uphold my property rights, it would then fall upon myself to uphold those property rights myself. It would take the will and capacity for me to use violence to secure what is "rightfully" mine.

Without the ability to apply force, rights will always be arbitrary and in the hands of the meanest dog on the block. We like to think of ourselves as "civilized" and everyone voluntarily respects each other's rights, but underlying all the rights we enjoy is the threat of application of force from police, militia or armed forces protecting those rights. Force, violence and the threat of violence is the power that upholds "legitimacy". It's only legitimate because of that force. All the philosophical musings make no difference to people who don't give a crap about your philosophical musings on the nature and origin of rights. In those times, against those people, violence is the only option left, save giving up your claim all together. That's always and option as well.

When the day comes that mankind no longer needs that threat of violence to protect what is right and proper, is the day mankind finds Utopia. I doubt it will be coming in the near future.......

[Symmetry]

Ah Patches... you always bring your special kind of crazy to these threads.

[patches70]

I agree with Patches. South America should forcibly retake Las Malvinas after giving a 90 days final offer of negotiation to the UK regime. Both of the principal British military officers during the '82 conflict say the UK is unable to launch a defense anymore so this should be able to be accomplished with minimal destruction.

Hey, I'm not saying South America should wage war. I don't know if it would be a good idea or not for them to do so. I know it's easy to start a war, it's another matter all together to sustain it, see it through to the end and win. If the UK mustered up the will then Argentina would find herself in a bad spot I'd think. I guess Argentina (and the UK for that matter) has to decide if taking such a line is really worth it.

I could care less. Let the Falklands do this or that, let Argentina and the UK beat each other bloody for all I care. Seems kind of silly to me, but then again, nations aren't always very rational when it comes to territorial disputes. All I know is that the bastards who decide this stuff rarely have to worry about having to do the dirty wetwork of making the other side see the error of their ways......

[patches70]

Ah Patches... you always bring your special kind of crazy to these threads.

Ahh, I guess you don't believe that when facing someone who is dead set committed to taking away whatever rights you think you have then the only choices you have left is either surrender those rights and do as your told or fight to protect those rights with the application of force.

Do you believe that police intervention is not an application of force directed from The State? I assure you, it is an application of force.

Don't pay your taxes and see first hand the State applying force to compel you to pay your taxes. Infringe upon another's property rights, for instance, and get a first hand gander at the application of force to deter you from that path. "Oh, but Patches, I'll just get sued" and if you don't accept that judgment and resist further, even greater force than a simple lawyer blabbering will be applied until you either comply or are dead or in prison. And believe me, TPTB will use force, if necessary, to toss you straight in prison.

In the absence of such societal mechanisms, two men who both feel they have a rightful claim on something, and neither is willing to back down or negotiate a settlement of some type, in the end it will come to blows. It applies just as well with two nations.

There are all types of force that can be applied, and will be applied to get one side to capitulate. It doesn't always have to be a gun to the head.

[Symmetry]

Ah Patches... you always bring your special kind of crazy to these threads.

Ahh, I guess you don't believe that when facing someone who is dead set committed to taking away whatever rights you think you have then the only choices you have left is either surrender those rights and do as your told or fight to protect those rights with the application of force.

Do you believe that police intervention is not an application of force directed from The State? I assure you, it is an application of force.

Don't pay your taxes and see first hand the State applying force to compel you to pay your taxes. Infringe upon another's property rights, for instance, and get a first hand gander at the application of force to deter you from that path. "Oh, but Patches, I'll just get sued" and if you don't accept that judgment and resist further, even greater force than a simple lawyer blabbering will be applied until you either comply or are dead or in prison. And believe me, TPTB will use force, if necessary, to toss you straight in prison.

In the absence of such societal mechanisms, two men who both feel they have a rightful claim on something, and neither is willing to back down or negotiate a settlement of some type, in the end it will come to blows. It applies just as well with two nations.

There are all types of force that can be applied, and will be applied to get one side to capitulate. It doesn't always have to be a gun to the head.

Quite a rant, that, and lots of fun strawmen set up and knocked down. The time you spent imagining arguments against your odd diatribe might have been better spent wondering why you spend so much time imagineering opposition.

[saxitoxin]

I agree with Patches. South America should forcibly retake Las Malvinas after giving a 90 days final offer of negotiation to the UK regime. Both of the principal British military officers during the '82 conflict say the UK is unable to launch a defense anymore so this should be able to be accomplished with minimal destruction.

Hey, I'm not saying South America should wage war. I don't know if it would be a good idea or not for them to do so.

They just need to take out the UK's Eurofighters, or even at least the runway at Mt. Pleasant so they can't take off. If Argentina starts flying right at the edge of "Falklands" territorial airspace every hour of every day for a month then, one day, pushes in and hits the runway with a few cluster bombs that'll knock out the Brits' entire interdiction capability. They only have something like 3 minutes warning once an airspace incursion has occurred so would be unable to launch before the runway was taken out. They would need to do this in the winter when there is no RN ship closer than 7 days away.

The Brits will still have SAMs but it won't matter. With the Eurofighters gone, the Argentine Army can leisurely land their marine brigade on west Malvinas and start shelling Stanley with 155mm rounds. A town of 2,000 will not be able to hold-out being hit by 100 high-explosive shells every hour for a week, which is what they'll need to do in order for reinforcements to arrive. Eventually they'll surrender and Argentina can move reinforcements in and fortify both islands ... the UK barely retook Malvinas in 1982 and they had 3 aircraft carriers. Today they have zero. Once the capture occurs they have no capability to retake them.

[Phatscotty]

These last 2 pages are the coolest 2 pages I have ever read in my life

[Symmetry]

These last 2 pages are the coolest 2 pages I have ever read in my life

Ayn Rand would be insulted, Scotty.

[GreecePwns]

There is a certain appeal in that argument, but the original question (and I apologize for going off topic; I was curious) was whether the taking of rights, property etc., is always legitimate or not.

A 2 second search of the definition gives us "done according to rules or laws." Presumably, it means a set of rules which a group decides for everyone to follow.

For example, your scenario implies that all military dictators legitimately have take power because they are able to defend that power. But they clearly don't take power by following established rules or laws for the transfer of power, whether it be constitution, international law, etc. They take it by force. That is not to say all forceful actions are illegitimate, it is to say that not all forceful actions are legitimate.

[GreecePwns]

You can take this a step further and say the British taking of Luis Vernet's colony was not legitimate, because its belonging to Argentina was not in dispute until Britain found a use for it. They used force once they found they could not take it peacefully.

The Argentinian claim to the island (and even its forceful taking, though this is not the desirable method) would be legitimate, because it would simply be the reversing of an illegitimate action and nothing more.

[saxitoxin]

I understand what Patches is saying - regardless of whatever bookish legitimacy we assign to the expropriation or repatriation of property ... rights, law and legitimacy is meaningless in the absence of (a) a regime to enforce it through violence, (b) the sudden death of all humans who are inclined to risk the safety of others to disobey the law (which is unlikely).

I don't think he's suggesting a survival of the fittest regime in international law, just that an egalitarian regime still requires violence to enforce its egalitarianism.

[BigBallinStalin]

Basically, this is a story where ARG declares its own sovereignty and claims lands which its military could not prevent foreign armed forces from taking. The question becomes: "is right by conquest legitimate?"

Given history, the answer to that question is a resounding "yes".....

Think of it this way: if my friends and I busted into your family's house, shot your parents and asked them to leave, would I then have a legitimate claim to your property?

In the absence of any police or governing body to intervene and I lack the will to kill you and your bushwacking friends? Yep, the property is now yours. At least until someone else comes along and takes the house from you and your friends.....

Wait, why do your parents lose their legitimate claim to their property if they lack effective enough means of rightfully reclaiming it?

If you have a legitimate claim to property, it's still your property until you voluntarily exchange the property rights to someone else. Exchanges made under duress aren't legitimate; otherwise, there would be no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate...

You can make whatever laws, contracts or agreements you want, but if you don't have the ability or the will to back up those claims with force, then you don't really have anything, do you?

Force, the will and ability to use it, is the basis for which all things are "legitimate".

The issue of legitimacy is distinct from the use of force, or rather enforcement of the law. Therefore, something of yours taken by force is still yours, by legitimate claim--as far as property rights are concerned. The use of force/ enforcement is a separate issue. Enforcement can be used for restoring or protecting your legitimate claims, but it never grants you the "basis for legitimacy." Enforcement can be used to carry out the laws of a dictator as well, and according to your logic, Stalin had legitimate claim on the lives of all he purged and relocated because "might makes right (essentially)." Legitimacy and enforcement are distinct concepts...

For example, a legitimate use of force would be taking back your rightful property. An illegitimate use of force would be armed robbery.

If you still think that "right by conquest" is legitimate, then with your position there's no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate claims to property. You may as well say that theft and voluntary trade are the same things, which doesn't make sense.

[BigBallinStalin]

I agree with Patches. South America should forcibly retake Las Malvinas after giving a 90 days final offer of negotiation to the UK regime. Both of the principal British military officers during the '82 conflict say the UK is unable to launch a defense anymore so this should be able to be accomplished with minimal destruction.

If things heat up in the Persian Gulf, and NATO seems a bit preoccupied, then as ARG, I'd attack as well.


It would be interesting to see if the UK would nuke a major Argentinian city, thus killing millions of people to protect 3000 or so.

[BigBallinStalin]

What of rights, then? Do they exist? Or can they be merely taken away by force?

Consider, GreecePwns, the US Constitution and all the "rights" we in the US enjoy. How is it that we came about having them?

Had the Founding Fathers lost the Revolution they would have been hung from the gallows and with their deaths so would have died the Declaration and our supposed "rights".

All rights are ultimately won on the battlefield. Once won, those rights can be passed down to future generations, but to gain those rights in the first place it takes force.
You can claim rights come from God, or a piece of paper, but when a fellow puts a gun in your face God ain't gonna save you and that piece of paper won't stop that bullet. You have to be prepared to defend your rights.

Rights are not won. They're enforced.

Rights aren't something that are gained. They're just a concept, an idea, which already exists.

Take BBS example, he and his buddies kill my parents and take their house, has my property rights been lost? Let's say "no", then what am I to do about it? Should I go to BBS and say "Oh, legally this property is rightfully mine. You and your friends will have to leave now". If he tells me to piss off, then what? Wave a piece of paper in his face?

If there are police I'd call them and they would use force to uphold my property rights by taking BBS and his buddies under arrest, if they resisted the police would just shoot them. Application of force both.

Without the benefit of police, army or anyone else to uphold my property rights, it would then fall upon myself to uphold those property rights myself. It would take the will and capacity for me to use violence to secure what is "rightfully" mine.

Without the ability to apply force, rights will always be arbitrary and in the hands of the meanest dog on the block. We like to think of ourselves as "civilized" and everyone voluntarily respects each other's rights, but underlying all the rights we enjoy is the threat of application of force from police, militia or armed forces protecting those rights. Force, violence and the threat of violence is the power that upholds "legitimacy". It's only legitimate because of that force. All the philosophical musings make no difference to people who don't give a crap about your philosophical musings on the nature and origin of rights. In those times, against those people, violence is the only option left, save giving up your claim all together. That's always and option as well.

When the day comes that mankind no longer needs that threat of violence to protect what is right and proper, is the day mankind finds Utopia. I doubt it will be coming in the near future.......

No, legitimacy is totally different and independent from enforcement.

If I'm a dictator, and I have my army take 80% of everyone's wealth without their permission, my actions are not legitimate simply because my goons beat people up and took their stuff. Your position holds no distinction between legitimacy and illegitimacy, and legitimacy is not arbitrary because it's grounded in rightfulness. If we take property rights and voluntary exchange to be the basis of legitimate title transfers, then hey, we have a reasonable standard for legitimacy.

How is the ability to engage in involuntary exchanges (i.e. theft) a reasonable standard for legitimate claims to property?

[BigBallinStalin]

I understand what Patches is saying - regardless of whatever bookish legitimacy we assign to the expropriation or repatriation of property ... rights, law and legitimacy is meaningless in the absence of (a) a regime to enforce it through violence, (b) the sudden death of all humans who are inclined to risk the safety of others to disobey the law (which is unlikely).

I don't think he's suggesting a survival of the fittest regime in international law, just that an egalitarian regime still requires violence to enforce its egalitarianism.

Legitimacy and rights are still meaningful concepts, even in the absence of (a)... (I'm not sure what you mean by (b), but it sounds exciting) because we still have notions of property rights and legitimacy even without (a) a regime through violence.


For example, if I took your pen, would you really require a "regime to enforce [your property rights] through violence" in order to restore your property?

[Symmetry]

Careful BBS, you're straying dangerously close to the common sense answer of considering the opinions of the Falkland Islanders.

[saxitoxin]

I agree with Patches. South America should forcibly retake Las Malvinas after giving a 90 days final offer of negotiation to the UK regime. Both of the principal British military officers during the '82 conflict say the UK is unable to launch a defense anymore so this should be able to be accomplished with minimal destruction.

If things heat up in the Persian Gulf, and NATO seems a bit preoccupied, then as ARG, I'd attack as well.


It would be interesting to see if the UK would nuke a major Argentinian city, thus killing millions of people to protect 3000 or so.

That's an interesting scenario.

If they did it would instantly reveal the location of all their nuclear weapons, since they're all stored on a single submarine, which would invite a devastating counter strike on Britain, or at least an attack to take-out the oil platforms in the North Sea, by one of the other nuclear powers; it would be an unheard-of opportunity for another nuclear power to suddenly know the precise location of every weapon of a second nuclear power. At the very least it would inspire Brazil to restart their nuclear weapons program, and probably Venezuela to start one. While the mullahs and imams dukes and viscounts running Britain are irrational enough to do it, for the last two reasons I don't think the U.S. would permit the UK to launch.

[patches70]

The issue of legitimacy is distinct from the use of force, or rather enforcement of the law. Therefore, something of yours taken by force is still yours, by legitimate claim--as far as property rights are concerned. The use of force/ enforcement is a separate issue. Enforcement can be used for restoring or protecting your legitimate claims, but it never grants you the "basis for legitimacy." Enforcement can be used to carry out the laws of a dictator as well. Legitimacy and enforcement are distinct concepts...

For example, a legitimate use of force would be taking back your rightful property. An illegitimate use of force would be armed robbery.

If you still think that "right by conquest" is legitimate, then with your position there's no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate claims to property. You may as well say that theft and voluntary trade are the same things, which doesn't make sense.

What's legitimate and what's not legitimate is decided by TPTB. China walks in and takes Tibet. We say it's not legitimate, the Chinese say otherwise.
Israel took Jerusalem and now claim it as theirs and call it legitimate, others disagree.

Russia marched across Eastern Europe and brought down the Iron Curtain. To the Russians it was legitimate, to the US it was not. The US either lacked the will or the force required to see otherwise, so therefore Russian dominance over Eastern Europe was in effect quite legitimate. At least, until Russia not longer had the will or ability to hold on to those claims of "legitimacy" and lost their territories. Those who took the territories (the people living there) claim their own right to do so. And so it is, what is legitimate one day is not the next. It all depends on who has the will and ability to see to their claim.

I suppose you might just be playing devil's advocate. The Right of Conquest and the Spoils of War have always been legitimate prizes throughout history. France and England took spoils from Germany after WWI and called it legitimate and in doing so seeded the future war. At the time, Germany lacked the ability to apply force to dispute the allies legitimate claims and it took the Huns a good 20+ years before they could do something about.
The US attacked Iraq and called it legitimate, and it was, did not Congress vote to use force? It became quite legitimate as far as the US was concerned.
The US (and Europe) bombed the hell out of Libya and called it legitimate. And so it is. Ole Gadaffi lay dead now, sodomized just before he was killed and it is all legit.
Saddam Hussein, legitimate leader of Iraq captured and tried. He was entirely correct when he said the Iraqi court which tried him did not have the legitimate right tto try him, for all the good that did Saddam as history shows us. He lacked the ability to apply force to uphold his legitimate claim where as the court that tried him had all the force required to try, convict and hang him dead.


In two sides of a dispute both are going to say they have a legitimate claim. Who is right? Who is wrong? Well, after they fight, the one left standing must be right....LOL

I'm not arguing the merits or the morality or the ethics of such, only that it exists and is a fundamental truth. I know you already know these things.

As to Trade and Theft being the same thing, there are certain....extreme Libertarian views (and anarchist, Marxist and other such philosophies) that argue Property is Theft. To them that's a legitimate claim. Depends on ones philosophy, Trade and Theft might just be the same thing. I don't happen to believe that, BTW, but if someone took over and used force to say it was so, then I guess it would be so no matter what my personal thoughts on the matter would be. Unless of course, I could muster a greater amount of force to prove them wrong.....

The issue of legitimacy is distinct from the use of force, or rather enforcement of the law. Therefore, something of yours taken by force is still yours, by legitimate claim--as far as property rights are concerned.

Tell that to the native Americans.....
Or any of the other multitude of peoples displaced, massacred and their property taken and the action called "legal" and "legitimate".

For example, a legitimate use of force would be taking back your rightful property. An illegitimate use of force would be armed robbery.

It's that easy? Hmmm, if in your example of you and your buddies taking over my parents house, if I stormed in there and wasted you all (a legitimate use of force would you say?) and your family after the fact takes exception that I shot you and your buddies dead, they might feel they have a legitimate reason to exact "justice" (revenge) upon me. No matter my claims of the "legitimacy" of me using force upon you to protect my property rights.
Hell, a court of law would label me a "vigilante" and toss me right in prison for that.
An illegitimate use of force they'd call it.

If you still think that "right by conquest" is legitimate, then with your position there's no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate claims to property. You may as well say that theft and voluntary trade are the same things, which doesn't make sense.

When the US does it, it's legitimate. When Iran does it, it's "aggression" and illegal. When the UK took colonies, forcibly and using force to hold those colonies, it was legitimate. The US in it's Revolution is considered by Americans as "legitimate" where as to the Brits, it was treason and thus not legitimate.

It's all in the details and depends from which angle you view it. Philosophically you can make a determination of what is and isn't legitimate, but all that means absolutely nothing if you do not have the ability to apply it. Without the force backing the claim of legitimacy, then whatever it is one thinks is legitimate won't be for very long. Someone else enacting their own "legitimate" claim will just come in and take it from you, and afterward call it "legal".

That's just how it is. I find it naive of people to not understand the role of violence in the application of natural rights, legal rights and all other things men and nations label as "legitimate".

A mob boss would consider it a legitimate use of force to waste the deadbeat who skipped out on his loanshark. The State would have another view of this I'd wager.
It's all in the pudding.

[patches70]

I understand what Patches is saying - regardless of whatever bookish legitimacy we assign to the expropriation or repatriation of property ... rights, law and legitimacy is meaningless in the absence of (a) a regime to enforce it through violence, (b) the sudden death of all humans who are inclined to risk the safety of others to disobey the law (which is unlikely).

I don't think he's suggesting a survival of the fittest regime in international law, just that an egalitarian regime still requires violence to enforce its egalitarianism.

This is correct.

[BigBallinStalin]

I agree with Patches. South America should forcibly retake Las Malvinas after giving a 90 days final offer of negotiation to the UK regime. Both of the principal British military officers during the '82 conflict say the UK is unable to launch a defense anymore so this should be able to be accomplished with minimal destruction.

If things heat up in the Persian Gulf, and NATO seems a bit preoccupied, then as ARG, I'd attack as well.


It would be interesting to see if the UK would nuke a major Argentinian city, thus killing millions of people to protect 3000 or so.

That's an interesting scenario.

If they did it would instantly reveal the location of all their nuclear weapons, since they're all stored on a single submarine, which would invite a devastating counter strike on Britain, or at least an attack to take-out the oil platforms in the North Sea, by one of the other nuclear powers; it would be an unheard-of opportunity for another nuclear power to suddenly know the precise location of every weapon of a second nuclear power. At the very least it would inspire Brazil to restart their nuclear weapons program, and probably Venezuela to start one. While the mullahs and imams dukes and viscounts running Britain are irrational enough to do it, for the last two reasons I don't think the U.S. would permit the UK to launch.

If ARG invaded the seas nearby Proper UK (i.e. by Continental Europe), then NATO would definitely get involved. Since ARG would want to avoid that likelihood, I wouldn't expect them to attack those oil platforms.

Wait... you just said "an attack... by one of the other nuclear powers." Why would any country join ARG in their war against UK, and most likely NATO (unless the US calls for peace)???