Top Gear Christmas special goes down to Argentina

[AutobahnSHO]

Yes but they didn't discover the oil until the last few years. Long after the war..

[FoMoJo]

Yes but they didn't discover the oil until the last few years. Long after the war..

I would hope that there would be some oil revenues available from the Falklands...as the Brits spent so much of their North Sea oil revenues in financing the war.

[Byteme]

Yes but they didn't discover the oil until the last few years. Long after the war..

There has been talk of oil there since the 1950's.  Confirmation by drilling is much more recent, certainly post 1982.

Argentina's always felt the islands were theirs.  Repeated attempts to resolve the 150 year old dispute came to nothing.  By 1982 I think Argentina, with it's military government,  felt the time was right to flex their muscles and take the islands by force.  They underestimated the resolve of the UK to fight for and hold the islands.

[Rupert]

Geographically Argentina's, culturally the UK's. Will of the people, etc.

[MexicoCityM3]

Argentina was a top world power at the beginning of the 20th century. Then they wasted an entire century and became a third world country. But they don't seem to ever accept that and get to work to fix it.

[Mustangfan2003]

Seems that Argentina took a page from the North Koreans book

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKkcTpCur7g

[AutobahnSHO]

Btw I studied it and wrote a paper, the debate "can" be linked to America getting mad and an American ship destroyed the Spanish colony, which is when the Brits settled for good....

[Onslaught]

http://transmission.blogs.topgear.com/2014/10/10/top-gear-in-argentina-what-really-happened/