Desperate Gambles of Dictators: The Taiwan Strait
Proceedings recently asked several frequent contributors how the next conflict might start. This essay is the latest in the series.
By Captain Sam J. Tangredi, U.S. Navy (Ret.)
September 2020
The military junta ruling Argentina was losing the last shred of credibility—and, with it, control. In 1976, the junta had removed Juan Peron’s second wife from power in an attempt to restore political stability and economic prosperity. Six years later, it faced massive popular discontent amid 130 percent inflation, frozen wages, a 5 percent—and accelerating—decline in gross domestic product, crumbling infrastructure, fleeing foreign global investment, international condemnation, and a dirty war against dissidents that may have killed 30,000. Its social compact with the Argentine people was broken.
Seeking to restore public approval and retain power, it chose to forcibly resolve a long-standing nationalist grievance. Calculating it could achieve a fait accompli as the world stood by, the junta ordered elite commandos to lead its armed forces in an invasion of the offshore British territory of the Falkland Islands—“las Malvinas.†The distance between the Falklands and the Argentine mainland is a little more than 320 nautical miles. It was inconceivable to the junta that the United Kingdom, a declining global power, would—despite massive financial costs, reduced military strength, appalling environmental conditions, and low net worth of the islands, and the possibility of failure—mount an 8,000-mile expedition to restore British sovereignty and islander self-determination. Renewed popular support for the junta seemed within reach.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2020/september/desperate-gambles-dictators-taiwan-strait
