In 1833, Captain James Onslow claimed the Falklands for Britain, a stake Argentina contested intermittently for the next 149 years. There are strong parallels in the political conditions, geographies, and military situations between the Falklands in 1982 and Western Pacific hot spots today, such as the Senkaku, Spratly, and Paracel Islands.Īdmiral “Sandy” Woodward, the Falklands British Task Force Commander, wrote that the “British victory would have to be judged anyway as a fairly close run thing… We fought our way along a knife-edge.” 1 Examining the lessons of the Falklands War may give the USN the advantage it needs to succeed in its own fight along a knife-edge─for example, the Senkakus War.įalklands and Senkakus: Oceans Apart but Closely Related The war is particularly informative for the USN as it looks for ways to establish maritime superiority in potential fights with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) over contested islands in the Western Pacific. Navy (USN) as it prepares for any future conflict. The 1982 Falklands War, featuring the only major conventional naval combat since World War II, is an excellent case study for the U.S. Naval Institute/To Prepare for a Fight Over the Western Pacific’s Contested Islands, There is No Better Resource than the Falklands War (Reprinted from Proceedings with permission Copyright C (2020) U.S.
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