Falklands/Malvinas? Air Warfare and Its Consequences: A Critical Geopolitical Approach

BLINDER, DANIEL

The Falklands/Malvinas War in the South Atlantic

Palgrave Macmillan

Lugar: London; Año: 2021; p. 85 - 115

This chapter investigates the geopolitical and technological dimensionsof the South Atlantic air warfare conflict over the Falklands/Malvinas in1982. On the one hand, it analyzes the aerial dimension of the war andits results for the Argentine Republic and the UK. On the other hand,it reviews the postwar context of technological restrictions imposed uponArgentina and, consequently, the two countries? different airpower capa-bilities. It assesses the Argentine presidential administrations from 1983 to 2018, that is to say: Alfonsín, Menem, De la Rúa, Kirchner, Fernándezde Kirchner, and Macri. With an emphasis on the last two, it stresses how the UK controlled the exports of military technology or dual-usetechnology to Argentina, developing a ?web of technological limitation,?which extended from British defense and trade governmental apparatuses to international institutions.The analysis proceeds a critical geopolitical approach, combining world-systems theory with geopolitics. This approach recognizes theinternational division of labor and technology, including the militaryones, to attend not merely the capital accumulation but also the nationalnotions of territoriality and power. Therefore, that approach addresses the geopolitical drivers of diffusion and the manufacture of military industry and technology.