Conclusion

Abstract

A surprising feature of the Falklands literature is the absence of detailed historical works on the international dimensions of the dispute in the decades prior to the war of 1982. What this book has defined as the ‘northern’ scholarship has been so captivated by Whitehall’s alleged subjugation to the islanders and their powerful Westminster allies that it has tended to be uninterested in going beyond the domestic sources of British decision-making. The Argentine appendix to this perspective, the historical revisionism inaugurated by Escude and continued by Palermo, has mirrored this approach, reducing the Malvinas campaign to a domestic-driven, emotional and consequently inflexible quest for territorial satisfaction that epitomised the impact of nationalism on 20th-century Argentine foreign policy. This depiction of the South Atlantic conflict as propelled by the incompatible forces of Argentine irredentism and the Falklanders’ resistance to change has certainly been contested by the ‘southern’ historiography, according to which the real root of the deadlock was — and continues to be — British imperialism. While providing an alternative to the ‘northern’ Primat der Innenpolitik thesis, ‘southern’ authors have however erred in diagnosing the international factors that actually affected the dispute. Obsessed with unveiling Britain’s hidden neocolonial agenda, they have both misunderstood the nature of British interests and overlooked Argentina’s own foreign policy goals.