Norman Stone - The Atlantic and Its Enemies

The 1980s have entered history, in much the same way as the twenties or the sixties or for that matter, before them, the fin-de-siècle nineties have done. Pinning down such things is not possible: pedantic historians can even claim that such decade moments do not exist. They do. Perhaps this is just a matter of technology: bikes, typewriters, telephones; the motor car; the Pill. The eighties were marked by the computer, or perhaps just money. However it is to be explained, there was a Wirtschaftswunder in the Atlantic world; though there was no tangible symbol, as had happened for the German original with the Volkswagen, because much of what happened, happened in cyberspace. The money translated into conspicuous consumption, often of a repulsive sort, at all levels, but all in all the 1980s deserve the name The Seven Fat Years , title of a famous book on the subject by Robert Bartley of the Wall Street Journal .

The decade began with lamentation, talk of a crisis in capitalism and of a Second (or Third) Cold War, but quite quickly, by 1982-3, things improved. The ‘Anglo-Saxons’, including Australia, were to see money in a way not experienced except maybe in the USA of the 1920s. In 1990, even taking inflation into account, the American GNP was nearly a third larger than in 1982 — equivalent to the entire German economy. Overall, the standard of living rose by close to a fifth and 18 million new jobs were filled. The output per hour of American labour — productivity — grew by 10 per cent, manufacturing grew by nearly half, and exports almost doubled. So did tax revenues. There was a British counterpart, although the ‘mix’ was very different, as manufacturing fell by roughly one quarter, and ‘services’ took its place: southern England boomed. In 1984 Ronald Reagan was re-elected, the first President since Eisenhower to have two full terms, on the basis of a ‘morning again’ campaign that took advantage of the boom, and the extraordinary confidence that came with it. He had more electoral votes than Roosevelt, and his opponent, Fritz Mondale, who stood on an old-fashioned platform of tax increases for ‘the rich’, was sunk without trace. Margaret Thatcher was similarly triumphant — three electoral victories in a row, and even, though in absentia , four. The performance was extraordinary, comparable to de Gaulle’s. It showed the British capacity for tissue regeneration, in defiance of all the self-imposed odds, and, though this may turn out to be the country’s last moment as world leader, the Thatcher government produced prototypes that were widely followed. But it was uphill work, to start with, the stage being cluttered with toxic historical furniture, with the last gunboat, and the last gasp of the industrial ‘triple alliance’ that had produced the strange death of liberal England seventy years before.

In 1982 Margaret Thatcher was under heavy attack from all sides: one of her best allies, Norman Tebbit, had it right when he said that he bore the scars of many wounds, mainly in his back. Then came an extraordinary episode, bringing modern themes together, including that of military dictatorship in Latin America. There was one such, a junta, in Argentina, the modern history of which had been one of squandered opportunities. Far from copying Pinochet, the military in Buenos Aires regarded him as a poor cousin, and cast about for ways to gain cheap popularity. A national cause of sorts existed, in a remaining British colony, the Falkland Islands, a few hundred miles from their coast. Take it over by force; the British would simply be grateful that some forlorn colonial outpost, which cost the taxpayer money, would be taken off the expense list. Relations between Argentinians and British were good; casual conversations showed that no-one in London cared about the Falklands one way or the other. Besides, British defence policy was a mess. In the later 1970s naval pay was so low that sailors had to moonlight. In 1980 there was a moratorium on defence contracts; there was absolute resistance to aircraft carriers and no-one would pay for the Falklands. On the other hand, Argentinian regimes were generally so awful that the Falklands lobbyists did not have any trouble in convincing the Left of their cause. However, the Argentinians misunderstood. They assumed that they would have American support or at least understanding. After all, the USA had become heavily involved in Central America, where Argentina’s support was needed: there was semi-clandestine military co-operation, the Americans supplying training and weaponry. In this atmosphere, taking the Falklands seemed to make sense. The American ambassadress at the United Nations, Jeane Kirkpatrick, was assumed to be influential, and she had written what was thought to be an important article — saying that the USA should tolerate lesser, banana republic authoritarian regimes.

In December 1981 a General Leopoldo Galtieri seized the dominant role in the Buenos Aires military junta, and he appeared as the ultimate in comic, circus-uniformed rulers, an ‘El Supremo’ out of Hornblower. In March 1982 he tested the waters: his troops landed on South Georgia, a remote, frozen place from which the British had conducted surveys of the Antarctic. Then, on 2 April, he invaded the Falklands. In London there was disbelief: a senior Foreign Office man caught the mood when he gasped, they cannot treat a major power in this way. Parliament was specially recalled, and was in boiling mood, a mood that even affected the left-wing Labour leader, Michael Foot. The navy was full of fight, and of course anxious to show that surface ships were still needed. Sir Henry Leach, First Sea Lord, had the qualities to persuade Margaret Thatcher that a naval force could and should be sent; he called the reductions in naval spending ‘the greatest con-trick of the century’. He also much admired Margaret Thatcher’s decisiveness and remarked, accurately, that if nothing had been done ‘we would have woken up in a different country’. She herself liked military men, whereas she tended to dismiss diplomats; she now took a great gamble. She would fight, guessing that she would have American support where needed. This was correct, and state-of-the-art Sidewinder missiles forced the Argentinian aircraft to fly low, such that many of their bombs did not explode, because the fuses had been mistimed. A British expeditionary force was put together with speed and efficiency, and embarked for a campaign, 8,000 miles away.

The fact was that British opinion had now divided, with, on the whole, educated people questioning the whole venture and, on the whole, uneducated people cheering on what the popular press called ‘our boys’. On the face of things, this was, as a German book’s title ran, ‘the absurd war’ — the last of the Royal Navy, embarking on a voyage of 8,000 miles for a nearly valueless set of islands, the inhabitants of which could, with a fraction of the cost, and greatly to their advantage, be resettled on one of the not dissimilar Scottish Hebrides. However, the Argentinian junta behaved with grotesque obstinacy, refusing American mediation, and waving aside even Latin American efforts. A proposal was made for the British ships to stop a thousand miles from the Falklands, and that was ignored (it was, in any event, unreal). An elderly battleship, the Belgrano , was first directed towards the islands, and then away from them; it was sunk on 2 May; 368 sailors drowned. Later, a great fuss was made, to the effect that it had been sunk so that Margaret Thatcher could simply ignore further attempts at mediation. Not many people believed these assertions at the time, and no-one does now. It is clear that the junta were in no mood to offer any concessions, even to common sense. War was war, and developed its own momentum, beyond the helicopter accidents hitherto seen. Two days later Sheffield was struck by an Exocet, twenty-one lives being lost. It was an old ship, with too much aluminium, and chaff, to distract the missile, was not used because the ship was broadcasting, and there were other near disasters, but, with both patience and determination, the Prime Minister was showing the generals and admirals, says Hugo Young, ‘every quality they least expected in a politician’. She also needed luck: there were large and vulnerable ships at stake, including, with some symbolism, the Queen Elizabeth II , which had been constructed in a conscious recall of the great days of Atlantic shipping. But morale was high, and the operation was professionally conducted.