It can be somewhat disorienting to see modern nation-states once
again flying the jingo flags over (relatively) insignificant specks
of land. Though the last half-century has been marked by military
conflicts all over the world, the fights have overwhelmingly been
of a particularly one-sided sort, as major powers engaged in
neo-imperialist expeditions from Central and Southeast
Asia
to
Africa
and the Middle-East.
The Falklands War or Guerra de las Malvinas of 1982 might be
considered one of the exceptions. One school of thought (held
largely by Argentina and its on-again off-again allies) is that the
war actually was a last-gasp neo-colonialist conflict, waged by
post-Imperial Britain against Third World Argentina. The other
point of view, more popular in the U.K. and most of NATO, holds
that it's all the South Americans' fault, as Britain legally held
the islands since 1833, the residents themselves would rather stick
with England and Argentina made the first aggressive move in any
case.
In an era of worsening economies and straiined politics, I'm
alarmed to see the rhetoric being ratcheted up over these windblown
specks of rock in the South Atlantic. Predictably enough, petroleum
could be at the center of the problem. The most recent escalation,
as the
Financial Times
reports, is an Argentine-suggested ban on ships flying
Falklands flags entering any of the ports of its
Mercosur trade pact partners: Brazil, Uruguay and, bizarrely,
landlocked Paraguay.
In addition, Argentine President Cristina Fernández de
Kirchner appears to calculate, like the Argentine military junta of
the '80s, that sabre-rattling and jingoism will distract people
from economic problems at home. Across the ocean, England faces its
own challenges with the mounting public cuts demanded by austerity
and a restive citizenry which already staged one set of dramatic
riots this year. Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher dealt with
similar challenges by responding to Argentina's aggression with a
massive show of force intended to rally the British Isles behind
her.
In the end, 649 Argentines and 258 Britons died and nothing changed
hands.
The two sides are once again casting themselves as avatars of
anti-colonialism on the one hand and liberal freedom on the other,
as
al-Jazeera
reports.
"In the 21st century, [Britain] continues to be a crass colonial
power in decline, because colonialism is out of date as well as
unjust," Kirchner declaimed yesterday. She also stated that the
British-controlled Falklands were stealing "our
oil
and fishing resources."
"As long as the Falkland Islands want to be sovereign British
territory, they should remain sovereign British territory - full
stop, end of story," fired back Prime Minister David Cameron in a
Parliament debate.
A British oil exploration firm, Rockhopper Exploration, holds
several prospecting rights on the islands. It
plans
to start pumping oil by 2016 and reach peak production of 120,000
barrels per day two years thereafter, with development costs
projected to reach $2 billion. Domestic production of oil in the
U.K., primarily based in Scotland and the North Sea, has steadily
declined over the last decade, and waning fields combined with
higher
taxes
have depressed production even more recently. According to the
Department of
Energy
and Climate Change, indigenous production of fuels in the UK
slipped nearly 20 percent in Q3 2011 from the previous year.
Overall, DECC figures show that the U.K. produced 438 million
barrels of oil in 2010 and imported 358 million barrels while
exporting 279 million barrels.
In that context, the production of an extra 43.8 million barrels of
oil per year, or 10 percent of last year's production, is not
insignificant. Unfortunately for the people of the Falklands, the
shrinking supply of oil combined with the rising stakes of
nationalism make further conflict more likely.