Blair dangerously weak on the Falklands

Tony Blair's NuLabour government weakness on the defence of the Falkland islands is being sensed by Argentina.

• The fleet air arm FA2 Harriers have been decommissioned.

• New Aircraft carriers are probably a decade away.

• Our elite troops are tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan

Action is required now to sure up the military position in the South Atlantic. The last Falklands war was a far closer run thing than many people realise against Argentine forces that didn't expect to fight until it was too late. The are very unlikely to repeat the same mistake again.

They have recently upgraded their air force and would make proper preparations with their navy ( no running round the world for exocet missiles once things had started of second time. ) They now test the response times of the RAF and are stopping cooperation on fishing. Tensions are again rising - will the government hide its head in the sand.

Proper thought should be given, in private, to how far we would wish to go to recover the Falklands again and policy formulated accordingly.

Personally I doubt the islands could be retaken again once lost. Think of the impact of a major defeat in the South Atlantic with massive British casualties. It could be the end of Britain itself.

I'm not defeatist - I just believe we should go about this properly. If we don't want to fight then we should negotiate from a position of strength, and not wait till that position deteriorates. If we are going to stand then give our young men and women the equipment and resources to do the job convincingly, and they will proberly never have to actually do. The third (Blair) way will get a lot of people killed and destroy our nation.

Update:

Good blog entry here on the diplomatic front in The Bewilderness ..whislt reading it think of how important Chile was to the British in the last war.

See also
NormBlog - The Falklands war and the article he quotes from MercoPress