A Success For No One

I recently heard a retired British diplomat tell of a cable he sent years ago to a colleague at the United Nations who was embroiled in sensitive negotiations over Cyprus. The telegram said simply, "Let us have not a victory, but a success." The British army now has its victory in the Falkland (or Malvinas) Islands. But the whole venture can hardly be considered a success for anyone, least of all the hundreds of dead on both sides. As is usually the case in warfare, there are only losses and failures, the loss of lives and the failure of compassion and patience.

The aftermath of the war will certainly see life worsened for all involved. The British will probably have to keep a long-term military presence on the islands if they intend to insist on sovereignty indefinitely. Such an occupation will be costly both financially and politically. Argentina will probably deal with defeat by buying more weapons, becoming more belligerent, and possibly going ahead with development of its own atomic bomb. Other Latin American nations will step up military spending as well after seeing how easily the British defeated Argentina. The only winners will be the U.S. and Western European companies that make and sell missiles, bombers, and battleships.

Each war brings with it the hope that the world will learn a lesson from the folly and destruction. The lessons of the Falkland/Malvinas war are rather simple and familiar ones, but they bear pointing out again. First of all we are reminded that wars are often waged to divert attention from oppressive social and economic conditions. This seemed to be the intention in Argentina, where in the days before the occupation of the island, the military government was near collapse because of a failing economy and human rights protests.

In Britain, Margaret Thatcher was in serious political trouble due to economic conditions, but her fortunes have been much improved by the war. We in the U.S. should keep this in mind as our own economy descends into depression.

Another familiar lesson is that nationalism is, more often than not, a blind, irrational, and destructive force. In Argentina we have seen people who courageously opposed the junta for years rally to its support in the war. And there is no rational explanation for the patriotic fervor that allowed the British public to accept so many deaths for so small a cause.

The war also reminds us that weapons are made to be used. The industrial nations cannot continue to arm the world through weapon sales and military aid programs and expect peace to result. This particularly applies to the U.S. government, which in large part created the Argentine military machine only to recoil in hypocritical horror when it was used in a way of which we didn't approve.

Which raises the primary lesson for the United States from the Falkland/Malvinas war. There are inherent and unavoidable pitfalls in trying to be the world's policeman. Practically all of Latin America, rich and poor, left and right, is outraged that the U.S. sided with the British incursion into the Americas. Even the generals and landowners who were Reagan's friends now believe that his talk of hemispheric solidarity is nothing more than a smokescreen to cover whatever happen to be U.S. interests at a given moment.

The strong anti-U.S. feeling that is emerging can be expected to harden the Reagan administration's military approach to Latin America. If some of the rabidly anti-communist regimes there turn to the Soviet Union for support, as Argentina has begun to do, the paranoia of Reagan and Haig will be heightened. The post-war situation is bound to be even more dangerous than the present.

Regarding the merits of Britain's and Argentina's respective claims, it would seem that while its use of force was inexcusable, Argentina does have some basis for claiming the islands. And the British are correct in saying that Argentina fired the first shot and Britain was defending itself against aggression. But what is not so clear is why it was necessary for our government to help defend a British colonial outpost off the shores of South America. That is exactly the kind of thing that has taught most of the world to hate us. The U.S. is perceived as the country that supports the Argentine government's murder of its own people and then turns around and supports a British occupation of Argentina's territory.

A big part of the task of peacemaking, especially for North Americans, is the struggle to transform the U.S. into a nation that has no need to either support and arm military repression or defend colonialism. We should work for the day when the U.S. keeps its weapons out of a conflict somewhere on the globe. That would be not a victory, but a qualified success for the whole world.

Danny Collum was associate editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.