History UsefulNotes / TheFalklandsWar

Notable for being the last armed-conflict in which the United States of America officially declared neutrality, though that neutrality wasn't exactly "neutral" per se. Having been recently gutted by budget cuts, some of the Royal Navy brass were unsure about just how much force they could project into the South Atlantic. Though it turns out that they were able to handle things just fine by themselves, the concern was significant enough for Thatcher to obtain an unofficial agreement with the Reagan Administration that would have Fleet Air Arm Harriers operating from a US Navy aircraft carrier (the United States [[RulesLawyer wouldn't be involved in hostilities]], just making sure the British jets didn't get lost...or run out of ammo) in the event that a British carrier couldn't be made ready in time. The agreement was rendered unnecessary when HMS ''Invincible'' commenced flight operations in the Falklands Theater. There is also a rarely-quoted and [[ClouCuckooLander even-more-rarely-believed]] conspiracy theory claiming that ARA ''General Belgrano'' [[FalseFlagOperation was secretly sunk by the Americans]]. The theory alleges that only the Americans would've known how to sink a ''Brooklyn''-class cruiser so quickly--[[SarcasmMode because seriously, who would've known that blowing her bottom out with a bunch of torpedoes would work so well?]]

Resulted in 255 British and 649 Argentine deaths, as well as those of three civilians. The British lost several ships, including two Type 42 Destroyers. The most notable Argentine loss was of the cruiser ARA ''General Belgrano'' (which had previously survived the [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII attack on Pearl Harbor]][[note]] ARA ''General Belgrano'' was built as the American ''Brooklyn''-class light cruiser USS ''Phoenix''. She was the largest US warship to escape Pearl Harbor during the attack, and served admirably throughout the war, only to be declared surplus in 1946 by a US Navy that had enough ships afloat to make a large artificial continent, but no war to fight with them. Faced with the expensive proposition of scrapping the retired cruiser, the US government sold her to Argentina for a song in 1957.[[/note]]) outside the pre-arranged war-zone to the British nuclear submarine HMS ''Conqueror''- their navy played little part in the war after that.

Resulted in 255 British and 649 Argentine deaths, as well as those of three civilians. The British lost several ships, including two Type 42 Destroyers. The most notable Argentine loss was of the cruiser ''General Belgrano'' (which had ''survived'' the [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII attack on Pearl Harbor]] as the American USS ''Phoenix'') outside the pre-arranged war-zone to a British submarine - their navy played little part in the war after that.

Notable for being the last armed-conflict in which the United States of America officially declared neutrality.

Diplomatic efforts failed, as neither side was willing to back down. It's also possible that war was what both sides truly wanted, since it actually helped both sides politically-speaking. The newest junta and UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher needed to regain their popularity, and [[LetNoCrisisGoToWaste fighting a war helps to boost a leader's popularity.]][[note]]Many believe this requirement for a good image was the true reason behind the war.[[/note]] For the Argentine junta, this naturally failed spectacularly with their defeat, and they were toppled the next year.

Resulted in 255 British and 649 Argentine deaths, as well as those of three civilians. The British lost several ships, including three Type 42 Destroyers. The most notable Argentine loss was of the cruiser ''General Belgrano'' (which had ''survived'' the [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII attack on Pearl Harbor]] as the American USS ''Phoenix'') outside the pre-arranged war-zone to a British submarine - their navy played little part in the war after that.

* Unsurprisingly, various British computer games of the 1980s took their inspiration from the war, including the flight sim ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrier_Attack Harrier Attack!]]'' and the (darkly hilarious) ''{{Frogger}}'' clone ''Yomp'', in which you guide a paratrooper across a dirt road with speeding army trucks ''and then across a minefield''.

* The enviroments (islands with a subarctic climate and overall atmosphere) and the [[TheEighties time frame]] in which ''OperationFlashpoint'' takes place are inspired by various aspects of this war, even though the plot is quite different (a small-scale NATO and Soviet showdown threatening to erupt into WorldWarThree). The game had several Falklands-themed {{Game Mod}}s over the years, directly featuring both militaries and various battles of the war. If you own the Game of the Year edition of ''OFP'', you can grab the Falklands War total conversion [[ftp://ftp.ofpr.info/ofpd/mods/FalklandsMod.rar here]] (mod) and [[ftp://ftp.ofpr.info/ofpd/mods/FLK_Update1-1.rar here]] (update/patch) and run it from a custom mod folder. Sadly, the DevelopmentHell it had gone through prevented its creators from making a proper campaign, so you'll have to play one of the three available missions or make your own in the game's editor. An archived version of the project's website can be seen [[http://web.archive.org/web/20070606111331/http://www.flashpoint1982.co.uk/ here]].
* The Cold War campaign in the ''Thrones and Patriots'' expansion of ''RiseOfNations'' has the US or Soviet Union (whomever the player picked) become much more involved in the Argentina police action.

The Argentine military junta launched an invasion of the islands it called the Malvinas, thinking that the British military wouldn't be able to respond effectively (if they'd left it a year later, they wouldn't have been able to). UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher dispatched a Royal Navy task force, which arrived in May.

Diplomatic efforts failed, as neither side was willing to back down. It's also possible that war was what both sides truly wanted, since it actually helped both sides politically-speaking. "The military junta" and UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher needed to regain their popularity, and [[LetNoCrisisGoToWaste fighting a war helps to boost a leader's popularity.]][[note]]Many believe this requirement for a good image was the true reason behind the war.[[/note]] For the Argentine junta, this naturally failed spectacularly with their defeat, and they were toppled the next year.

The [[BananaRepublic Argentine military junta]] launched an invasion of the islands it called the Malvinas, thinking that the British military wouldn't be able to respond effectively (if they'd left it a year later, they wouldn't have been able to). UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher dispatched a Royal Navy task force, which arrived in May.

* ''La Asombra Excursión de Samba en las Islas Malvinas,'' ("Samba's Amazing Adventure in the Falkland Islands") features the titular schoolboy traveling back in time to witness the events of 1982. As this is a children's educational cartoon series funded by the Argentine government, the episode includes such factual highlights of the War as the [[BlatantLies bombing of HMS Invincible by a lone Argentine Etendard]] and the [[BlatantLies Gurkha Regiment's defeat in hand-to-hand fighting with Argentine conscripts at the Battle of Mount Longdon.]]
** The episode itself is freely available online, a [[GagSub dubiously accurate]] English-language subtitled version is viewable [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKkcTpCur7g here]].

* The Falklands War plays a role in the first arc of ''[[GrantMorrisonsBatman Batman Inc]]'' - the British Government sent a patriotic team there to stop the supervillain Doctor Daedalus. Memories of the war also cause tension between the Hood (who's British) and El Gaucho (Argentinean).

The [[BananaRepublic Argentine military junta]] launched an invasion of the islands it called the Malvinas, thinking that the British military wouldn't be able to respond effectively (if they'd left it a year later, they wouldn't have been able to). MargaretThatcher dispatched a Royal Navy task force, which arrived in May.

Diplomatic efforts failed, as neither side was willing to back down. It's also possible that war was what both sides truly wanted, since it actually helped both sides politically-speaking. "The military junta" and MargaretThatcher needed to regain their popularity, and [[LetNoCrisisGoToWaste fighting a war helps to boost a leader's popularity.]][[note]]Many believe this requirement for a good image was the true reason behind the war.[[/note]] For the Argentine junta, this naturally failed spectacularly with their defeat, and they were toppled the next year.

Diplomatic efforts failed, as neither side was willing to back down. It's also possible that war was what both sides truly wanted, since it actually helped both sides politically-speaking. "The military junta" and MargaretThatcher needed to regain their popularity, and [[LetNoCrisisGoToWaste fighting a war helps to boost a leader's popularity.]][[note]]Many believe this requirement for a good image was the true reason behind the war.[[/note]] For the Argentine junta, this naturally failed spectacularly with their defeat, and they fell from power the next year.

[[folder:Music]]
* The Music/IronMaiden song "Como Estais Amigos" is an somber expression of solidarity with the Argentinian people (Maiden is, of course, British) and discusses the conflict.
* The war, as well as the terrible conditions of the UK in the early in 1980s, form the backdrop for the Music/PinkFloyd album, ''Music/TheFinalCut''. Several of its songs, like "Southampton Dock" and "The Gunner's Dream", are written from the point of view of the schoolteacher from ''Music/TheWall'', a shellshocked UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo veteran, who watches young soldiers go off to fight in the Falklands for no reason, and expresses dismay that no one has learned from history and that England failed to fulfill the post-war promise to promote peace instead of fighting and bloodshed. "Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert" and "The Fletcher Memorial Home" directly blast both sides of the war and various world leaders in general, condemning Galtieri and Thatcher ([[LongList and Reagan, and Begin, and Brezhnev, and so on]]) as "colonial wasters of life and limb" who make WarForFunAndProfit with an inhuman disregard for people's lives.
* The Music/{{Sabaton}} song "Back In Control" is about the war from the perspective of the British military.
* The most famous protest song in response to the war, however, is "Shipbuilding", written and first recorded by Music/ElvisCostello, but best known in the version by Robert Wyatt.
* Anarcho-punk band Music/{{Crass}} viciously criticised the war with the singles "How Does It Feel to Be the Mother of a Thousand Dead?", "Sheep Farming in the Falklands" and their last album ''Yes Sir, I Will''.

[[folder:Literature]]
* A number of Jack Higgins's thrillers after 1982 mention this war, most of all ''Exocet''.
* The Falklands War is mentioned and often discussed in the early ''Literature/AdrianMole'' books. Adrian's father panics after hearing the news about the outbreak of war... until Adrian reassures him that the Falklands are located by the shore of South America and not Scotland.
* ''The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman'' by Creator/RaymondBriggs retells the war as a children's picture book.

Diplomatic efforts failed, as neither side was willing to back down. It's also possible that war was what both sides truly wanted, since it actually helped both sides politically-speaking. "The military junta" and MargaretThatcher needed to regain their popularity, and [[LetNoCrisisGoToWaste fighting a war helps to boost a leader's popularity.]][[note]]Many believe this requirement for a good image was the true reason behind the war.[[/note]]

* The Falklands War plays a role in the first arc of ''ComicBook/BatmanInc'' - the British Government sent a patriotic team there to stop the supervillain Doctor Daedalus. Memories of the war also cause tension between the Hood (who's British) and El Gaucho (Argentinean).

!!Tropes involved in this war include:
* AcePilot: A lot of the pilots on both sides, the British pilots on the one hand were the only ones to actually make air-to-air kills; while in the other hand the Argentine pilots managed to get great kills while running on very little fuel and also could only afford to drop their bombs and run. The war was one of the few occasions after UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo when anyone even had a chance at earning the title of this trope. Highest scoring pilot, David Morgan, scored 3.5 kills.
* UsefulNotes/ArgentinesWithArmoredVehicles: Quite literally (see the TankGoodness entry).
* BadassArmy: The British Army. The Argentinian Armed Forces completely averted this.
* BadassNormal: Patrick Watts, the Falkland Islands Broadcasting Service radio announcer, who stayed on the air throughout the night of the invasion giving updates, even when the station was seized by Argentine troops. The transmission went on, and he was ordered to broadcast a message to the people from the Argentinian military. His response? "Yes, alright, but I'm not speaking with a gun in my back. Put the gun down, please. And I don't allow smoking in my studio!"
* BananaRepublic: No matter what one's opinion on the sovereignty issue is, Argentina under the [[PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny National Reorganization Process]] counted. One of the reasons for the war was because the Junta sought something to placate domestic discontent at home.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: Argentina learnt the hard way that [[UnderestimatingBadassery pissing off]] the British [[BadassArmy army]] is ''not'' a good idea.
** Moreover, Admiral Anaya who was the mastermind in charge of planning and carrying out the invasion despised democracy and Britain in particular, having spent several years there as a Naval Attache and been decidedly unimpressed at the lack of the insane militarisation and authoritarianism, viewing them as weak and corrupt pushovers who would be easily humiliated by Argentina.
* UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships [[CoolPlane And Jump Jets]]: [[CoolVsAwesome As awesome as it sounds.]]
* BodyHorror: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Weston This guy]] was on board RFA ''Sir Galahad'' when it was bombed. [[MadeOfIron He survived with 46% of his body burned]]. Some time after the war, he met and became friends ''with the pilot who bombed him''.
* BullyingTheDragon: Yeah, let's invade land belonging to one of the most modern and well equipped armies with our young and untrained men. [[TemptingFate What can possibly go wrong?]].
* RealLife/CoolPlane:
** On the British side, there's the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Harrier Sea Harrier]], which was deployed in a warzone for the first time in its operational history. To a lesser extent, so were the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_vulcan Avro Vulcan]] strategic jet bombers - though this would be the the first, last and ''only'' time they were used in a shooting war, in the course of which they set the record for the longest bombing missions ever undertaken. Not bad for a design conceived in the 1940s, first flown in 1952 and ready to be phased out around the time the war started... [[BreakOutTheMuseumPiece You could say the war gave them a final blaze of glory before heading into retirement]].
** The Argentinian [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FMA_IA_58_Pucar%C3%A1 Pucará]] ground attack planes may have been helpless against Sea Harriers and SAS operatives with grenade launchers, but the British found them hard to take down. In addition to them, they had trusty French Dassault Mirage fighters and Dassault Super Etendard naval fighter-bombers (able to carry the infamous EXOCET missiles).
* {{Conscription}}: The Argentinian way on assembling the army. The soldiers [[SlaveMooks themselves]] referred themselves as ''colimbas'': ''co''rrer ("run"), ''lim''piar ("cleanse") and ''ba''rrer ("sweep") as their military training often left leeway for desiring better.
* CrazyEnoughToWork: The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Black_Buck Avro Vulcan bomber raids on Stanley Airport]] were a series of five aerial operations on a scale that was [[TemptingFate never even tested before, let alone attempted in a war]]. Despite all the odds, the single Vulcan bomber and its crew deployed in each mission still pulled it off ! One plane and crew did have a close shave when they [[OhCrap nearly couldn't refuel in mid-air on time during the return flight]], but they eventually made it and landed safely back on Ascension Island, 7500 kilometres from the Falklands. During the entire mission, they didn't land once and endured a flight totalling ''15 000'' kms.
* CurbStompBattle:
** The Battle of Goose Green, in which the British units defeated ''fortified'' Argentine forces ''three times their size'', despite losing a few men themselves, particularly in the end phase of the battle (the siege of the Goose Green settlement itself - the entrenchments around the airfield and the schoolhouse, to be precise).
** The war in general. Argentinian army was mostly made of young untrained soldiers that were forced to participate. Their equipment was more advanced than what you'd see the average {{Qurac}} or BananaRepublic using, but still were not first rate. Britain had one of the best armies in the world. Despite having to travel extremely long distances, the British ended up completely crushing the Argies on their home turf, inflicted a three to one casualty ratio, and taking over ten thousand prisoners.
* TheDreaded: The [=BAe=] Sea Harrier. And the Gurkhas.
* TheEmpire: The war was billed as the return of UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire, with some newspaper headlines even reading "[[IncrediblyLamePun The Empire Strikes Back]]", and argentine propaganda heralded the war as a heroic fight against "British Imperialism" to its people and internationally. Subverted in the fact Britain wasn't (and isn't) an empire; it was a liberal democracy fighting to defeat a military dictatorship led by a genocidal fascist junta who had invaded British land and were holding thousands of British people hostage. More straightly, what the Argentine military wanted to create at the expense of Britain, UsefulNotes/{{Chile}}, and UsefulNotes/{{Uruguay}}. Unfortunately for them, they chose to fight the British first rather than the two neighboring [[BananaRepublic Banana Republics]], with... [[CurbStompBattle predictable results.]]
* EverybodyLives: The Ajax Bay field hospital ("The Red and Green Life Machine") commanded by Surgeon Captain Rick Jolly RN had a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Jolly near perfect record]] of keeping patients alive ''"...despite dust, dirt, poor lighting [[BreadEggsMilkSquick & the presence of two unexploded bombs...]]"''.
* FastRoping
* TheGeneralissimo: Galtieri and the rest of the Junta are textbook examples.
* GenghisGambit / DespairGambit : What the war was to the increasingly unpopular Galtieri government. Arguably, it backfired as the outrage from the defeat led directly to its' overthrow soon after the war.
* GloriousLeader: Galtieri and the rest of the Argentine Junta are casebook examples. [[IronLady Maggie Thatcher]] and [[UsefulNotes/AugustoPinochet Pinochet]] also displayed at least some shades of it.
* GoodGunsBadGuns: Averted. Due to the fact that Argentina was formerly a NATO ally, almost all of their military equipment was American or French surplus, which put them a cut above most non-NATO / non-Warsaw Pact nations at the time. In fact, both sides carried the same rifle (more or less. The British version of the FAL used Imperial dimensions, as opposed to metric and was semi-auto only).
* GunboatDiplomacy: A failure of this on both sides -- a report that British submarines were being sent to the Falklands (which had deterred a previous attempt to take the Islands) actually spurred the invasion to take place before they arrived. And the failed invasion has made a peaceful settlement of the Falklands issue virtually impossible.
* HeroicBSOD: A lot of veterans on both sides [[DrivenToSuicide committed suicide after the war was over]]. More British soldiers killed themselves after the war than [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1758301.stm died during the war]].
* HoistByHisOwnPetard / KarmicDeath / NiceJobFixingItVillain: : On a governmental level, the National Reorganization Process - the totalitarian junta that was [[TyrantTakesTheHelm ruling Argentina with an iron fist since the mid-1970s]] - suffered this due to the civilian backlash from the complete failure of its [[DespairGambit PR-raising imperial adventure]]. The Argentine Junta sought to use the war as a rallying point to keep power and redirect popular discontent outwards. [[TheEmpire And if they're lucky, maybe form an Empire doing so.]] The defeat and capitulation led the war to be used as a rallying point [[LaResistance against the Junta]] and its handling of it, almost directly leading to the Junta's overthrow. After Argentina lost the war, the junta limped on for a while, but soon came crashing down and democracy in the country was restored, after decades of wild regime changes. Despite some economic problems bugging it since the 90s, Argentina [[EarnYourHappyEnding has been a stable democracy ever since the junta fell in the early 80s]]. This means that the country has so far endured the longest period in its turbulent history in which it has been politically stable and without infighting between various factions. So, the Falklands War, despite [[WhatASenselessWasteOfHumanLife the senseless waste of lives]], has [[VindicatedByHistory actually helped Argentina itself in the long run]].
* HonorBeforeReason: It was about the conflicting honor of the respective states. The Falklands don't have any material benefits and if there were the populations of the respective countries, as opposed to the governments would not have been particularly more supportive.
* {{HSQ}}: Pretty damn high despite the relatively moderate body count.
* IdiotBall: If the invasion has been postponed for three months, impending British naval cutbacks would have made it impossible to retake the Islands.
* IWillFightSomeMoreForever: ''Inverted''. Similarly to the later UsefulNotes/GulfWar, Argentinian soldiers surrendered by the thousands, in some cases just because they heard that the British ''might'' be attacking the area they were tasked to guard.
* [[OccupiersOutOfOurCountry Occupiers Out Of Our Territory]]: Depending on who you ask, either side. Objectively though, the British had legally acquired the islands over a hundred years beforehand, a fact that Argentina had previously recognized and accepted, and they were forcibly occupied in a military assault by Argentina (whom at this time was led by a military junta responsible for a nightmarish campaign of extermination against dissidents), who have about as much legal right to them as the UnitedStates (who like Argentina, also briefly "held" the Falklands in the early 1800s). The Falklanders themselves have stated several times that they want to remain part of the United Kingdom.
* IronLady / MamaBear: Margaret Thatcher, as one would expect. You do not want to mess with her, even if its over a few sparsely-inhabited subarctic islands.
* LaResistance: Most of the islanders didn't try armed resistance against the invading Argentines, but they often worked on undermining the occupation and ceding secretly gathered military intelligence to the British fleet after its arrival. Some of the resistance stories are rather humourous, [[http://www.falklands.info/history/hist82article19.html including the memoirs of one local who took secret snapshots of Argentine camps and installations with a camera concealed within a drainpipe]].
* LesCollaborateurs: Alexander Betts is probably the only example of this during the war. He was already a notorious trouble maker and wildly unpopular on the islands and whole heartedly latched on to the invasion forces (and according to the Rattenbach Report actively tried to aid them) seemingly out of pure spite for his neighbours despite [[http://en.mercopress.com/2013/07/30/falklands-at-c24-alejandro-betts-misrepresents-says-professor-willets having been a vocal opponent]] of Argentina's aims to annex the islands beforehand. He immigrated to argentina shortly after the defeat and has since used the tale of his "persecution" at the hands of the islanders to help the Argentine government "prove" how undeserving of human rights they are.
* MoreDakka: Averted most of the time. [[{{Irony}} Both sides were equipped with]] [[ModernBattlefieldWeapons variants of the FN FAL]] CoolGuns/{{battle rifle|s}}, but the ones used by the British were limited to semi-automatic. Played straight with actual stationary and light machine guns, that came in handy during the Battle of Goose Green.
** British soldiers often exchanged their semi-automatic British-made FN FAL rifles with the Argentine's full-auto capable FAL's for exactly this reason, even though battle rifles like the FAL are notoriously difficult to handle in fully-automatic.
* NaiveNewcomer: When many of the Argentinian {{Red Shirt}}s were captured, it became increasingly common to learn that they were force-fed a lot of cunning propaganda by the junta's official PropagandaMachine within the armed forces. A combination of appeals to nationalist and Christian iconography were among the commonest, trying to give the conscripts feelings that they are [[BlatantLies just rightfully reclaiming what belongs to Argentina and should consider themselves righteous heroes]].
* NepaliWithNastyKnives: The British Ghurkas also served on the battlefield and won at least one battle without firing a shot: Argentine soldiers who were told they were being attacked by Gurkhas turned tail and ran.
* PointDefenseless: The Argentinians managed to score hits on a number of British ships, sometimes with unguided "dumb" bombs, exposing the limitations of said ships' point defence systems.
* PropagandaMachine: The Argentine press became notorious for it's handling of the war, with massively inflated (if not entirely made up) British casualties being reported, dozens of British ships being supposedly sunk (repeatedly), and utterly fictional tales of heroism and glory (most notably the claim that a single Argentine pilot sunk the HMS Invincible aircraft carrier, which inexplicably continues to be held as truth by the Argentine government and military despite the same ship being very obviously undamaged and unsunk at the end of the war and for the next few decades). One common story which encapsulates this was the fact that many Argentine POWs were transported home on the Canberra, with the conscripts learning only when on board that the claims of it being sunk were just another lie.
* RedShirtArmy: The Argentine military was this in general, although it wasn't ''completely'' one-sided in the UK's favour. Notably, the Argentine Air Force was seen as a WorthyOpponent, at least on a technical stage (though still somewhat disadvantaged), which was ironic considering the Air force was the most opposed to war out of the three branches of the Argentine military.
* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Prince Andrew served as co-pilot of a Sea King helicopter, flying electronic decoy missions off the carrier HMS ''Invincible'', to trick the Argentine missiles to follow him instead of hitting the ship. Even more impressive since the Cabinet wanted to keep him out of the fighting, but [[UsefulNotes/HMTheQueen his mum]] insisted that he be allowed to serve, if he wished.
* ShroudedInMyth:
** The British deliberately announced that the Gurkhas were assigned to the campaign in public to make absolutely sure that the Argentines knew. Rumor began to spread about the "hideous things" Gurkhas did to their prisoners. As a result, once when they arrived on a ridge no Argentines were there.
** On one returning transport ship there was written in graffiti that the Gurkhas were taking several hundred Argentine heads with them. All that of course is legend. The Gurkhas behaved in a civilized and disciplined fashion. But it is funny and shows how far a reputation can go.
** The myths about the Gurkhas also crossed national boundaries and grew almost comically insane, to the point where Colombian journalist Creator/GabrielGarciaMarquez wrote of the Gurkhas' purported atrocities, including lurid descriptions of them murdering surrendering Argentines, the mass gang rape by the Gurkhas of prisoners, and the "fact" they were so animalistic and insane that they had to be tied up and restrained like animals by the British because they were so uncontrollably berserk. Unfortunate Implications abound needless to say, given both the utter lack of anything even resembling fact, and the very blatant racism at work in such tales. (Ironically, both the British and the Gurkhas actually treated their prisoners better than the Junta treated their soldiers.)
* StiffUpperLip: On one of the sinking ships, British sailors waiting on deck to be rescued passed the time by singing [[Film/MontyPythonsLifeOfBrian "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life"]].
** Upon discussing the impending invasion with the commander of the island's small force of Marines and sailors, the governor stated very calmly, "Sounds like the buggers mean it."
* TakeAThirdOption: The war placed the United States in an awkward position: while the Monroe Doctrine required the U.S. to react against any European attacks on the American hemisphere, it was also obligated to assist its oldest and most powerful ally. After Argentina rejected attempts at brokering a peace by the United States, America discontinued selling arms to Argentina and supplied material support to Britain's forces (missiles, the USS Iwo Jima, etc). Further, Congress voted to approve these actions that favored Britain.
** The Falklands were also always a possession of a European power, except for a period when it was abandoned and then claimed by Argentina for a decade or so. It is very much a British property and there is no reason to intervene against the UK over them trying to defend something which is rightfully theirs.
** More practically, the U.S. was afraid that its involvement might prompt the Soviets to start bankrolling Argentina, thus turning the conflict into yet another UsefulNotes/ColdWar proxy war.
*** As a direct result, the Falkland Islands Conflict bears the distinction of being the last war in which the United States declared itself officially neutral.
* TankGoodness: Double subverted. The Argentinians deployed French [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panhard_AML Panhard AML]] armoured cars and American [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/LVTP7-IMARA-17may07.jpg LVTP7]][[AwesomePersonnelCarrier amphibious APCs]] instead of tanks. They didn't do much before being withdrawn from the islands or blown up with Milan anti-tank missiles. The trope was played straight a bit more by the British, who deployed [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FV101_Scorpion Scorpion]] and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FV107_Scimitar Scimitar]] light tanks, which were used in several engagements.
* TheWoobie: The often badly-trained, confused and exhausted Argentine [[NewMeat conscripts]] were generally seen as this, [[ItHasBeenAnHonor even by the Brits themselves]]. Their RedshirtArmy reputation was only exacerbated when they started their mass desertions and [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere voluntarily gave up to the advancing British forces]] ''[[UpToEleven in droves]]''. Sadly, while they were all treated well and taken back home after the end of the hostilities, hundreds of them were [[ShellShockedVeteran so traumatised by their experiences in the war]] that they [[DrivenToSuicide committed suicide]]. This only added to the already high death toll on the Argentinian side. And as already mentioned, despite being on the winning side, many of the scarred British soldiers [[DownerEnding did the same after the war]]...
* UnderestimatingBadassery: The Junta honestly believed it's own propaganda that Britain, like all liberal democracies in the Junta's mind, was pathetically weak, decadent, and impotent, and would never respond to the invasion out of fear for a "rising power" like Argentina. This despite the fact that Britain was not only one of the most powerful and advanced military nations on the planet which was in the middle of fighting a cold war, but was also helmed by a decidedly pro-miltary and aggressive leader.
** What really made them bold was Britain moving its fleet away from the Falklands and they believe they won't be able to respond in time when they invade the islands. When Argentina did invade the British responded quickly and sends its ships to the offensive.
* WarForFunAndProfit: The invasion was meant to be a PR boost for the ruling Argentine military junta. It backfired. Badly.
* WarriorPrince / RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Prince Andrew flew an ASW helicopter personally. In order to decoy missiles from his ship, no less. The cabinet wasn't quite easy with him going but [[UsefulNotes/HMTheQueen his mum]] insisted he be allowed to fight.
* WeaponsKitchenSink[=/=]SelectiveHistoricalArmoury: Noticeable with some of the standard issue firearms used in the war. While most of the small arms were reasonably contemporary models (e. g. the FN [=FALs=] and the various grenade and rocket launchers), the troops were still using some trusty UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo era arms as well: The Brits used Sterling [=SMGs=] for close combat and updated Lee-Enfield bolt-action rifles for sniping duty, while the Argentines had the American M3 "Grease Gun" [=SMGs=] and German WWII and ''[[BreakOutTheMuseumPiece WWI]]'' Mauser rifles as equivalents. In the case of the Argentines, it was more out of necessity than anything else, since their army equipment was generally more outdated than the British one (though, surprisingly, the Argentine soldiers had more effective night vision devices).
* YeGoodeOldeDays[=/=]AnachronismStew: Admittedly for some noncombatants it felt a bit like deja vu as this seemed like something out of the days of Creator/RudyardKipling when "[[WarIsGlorious War Was Glorious]]" and the sun never set on UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire. OK, war is only glorious to those who don't have to crawl in the mud, not even in the days of Creator/RudyardKipling. But it looks different in the news.
* YouCantThwartStageOne: [[AvertedTrope Averted.]] Out of at least Britain, [[GloriousLeader Pinochet's]] [[BananaRepublic Chile]], and [[TeamSwitzerland Uruguay]], the Argentine Junta chose the British as the stage one targets of their wider plans for expansion. [[HoistByHisOwnPetard Ooops.]] Played straighter by the successful occupation of the barely-defended islands and the surrender of the skeleton garrison.

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[[caption-width-right:180:[[NeverLiveItDown Bullseye]]

[[caption-width-right:180:Bullseye]]

* Anarcho-punk band Crass viciously criticised the war with the singles "How Does It Feel to Be the Mother of a Thousand Dead?", "Sheep Farming in the Falklands" and their last album ''Yes Sir, I Will''.

->'''"[[TheBritishEmpire The Empire]] [[Franchise/StarWars Strikes]] [[Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack Back]]"'''

* TheEmpire: The war was billed as the return of TheBritishEmpire, with some newspaper headlines even reading "[[IncrediblyLamePun The Empire Strikes Back]]", and argentine propaganda heralded the war as a heroic fight against "British Imperialism" to its people and internationally. Subverted in the fact Britain wasn't (and isn't) an empire; it was a liberal democracy fighting to defeat a military dictatorship led by a genocidal fascist junta who had invaded British land and were holding thousands of British people hostage. More straightly, what the Argentine military wanted to create at the expense of Britain, UsefulNotes/{{Chile}}, and UsefulNotes/{{Uruguay}}. Unfortunately for them, they chose to fight the British first rather than the two neighboring [[BananaRepublic Banana Republics]], with... [[CurbStompBattle predictable results.]]

* YeGoodeOldeDays[=/=]AnachronismStew: Admittedly for some noncombatants it felt a bit like deja vu as this seemed like something out of the days of Creator/RudyardKipling when "[[WarIsGlorious War Was Glorious]]" and the sun never set on TheBritishEmpire. OK, war is only glorious to those who don't have to crawl in the mud, not even in the days of Creator/RudyardKipling. But it looks different in the news.

* The war, as well as the terrible conditions of the UK in the early in 1980s, form the backdrop for the Music/PinkFloyd album, ''The Final Cut''. Several of its songs, like "Southampton Dock" and "The Gunner's Dream", are written from the point of view of the schoolteacher from ''Music/TheWall'', a shellshocked UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo veteran, who watches young soldiers go off to fight in the Falklands for no reason, and expresses dismay that no one has learned from history and that England failed to fulfill the post-war promise to promote peace instead of fighting and bloodshed. "Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert" and "The Fletcher Memorial Home" directly blast both sides of the war and various world leaders in general, condemning Galtieri and Thatcher ([[LongList and Reagan, and Begin, and Brezhnev, and so on]]) as "colonial wasters of life and limb" who make WarForFunAndProfit with an inhuman disregard for people's lives.

* TheEmpire: The war was billed as the return of TheBritishEmpire, with some newspaper headlines even reading "[[IncrediblyLamePun The Empire Strikes Back]]", and argentine propaganda heralded the war as a heroic fight against "British Imperialism" to its people and internationally. Subverted in the fact Britain wasn't (and isn't) an empire; it was a liberal democracy fighting to defeat a military dictatorship led by a genocidal fascist junta who had invaded British land and were holding thousands of British people hostage. More straightly, what the Argentine military wanted to create at the expense of Britain, Chile, and Uruguay. Unfortunately for them, they chose to fight the British first rather than the two neighboring [[BananaRepublic Banana Republics]], with... [[CurbStompBattle predictable results.]]

* GloriousLeader: Galtieri and the rest of the Argentine Junta are casebook examples. [[IronLady Maggie Thatcher]] also displayed at least some shades of it.

* YouCantThwartStageOne: [[AvertedTrope Averted.]] Out of at least Britain, [[UsefulNotes/AugustoPinochet Pinochet's]] [[BananaRepublic Chile]], and [[TeamSwitzerland Uruguay]], the Argentine Junta chose the British as the stage one targets of their wider plans for expansion. [[HoistByHisOwnPetard Ooops.]] Played straighter by the successful occupation of the barely-defended islands and the surrender of the skeleton garrison.

* YouCantThwartStageOne: [[AvertedTrope Averted.]] Out of at least Britain, [[GloriousLeader Pinochet's]] [[BananaRepublic Chile]], and [[TeamSwitzerland Uruguay]], the Argentine Junta chose the British as the stage one targets of their wider plans for expansion. [[HoistByHisOwnPetard Ooops.]] Played straighter by the successful occupation of the barely-defended islands and the surrender of the skeleton garrison.

* BullyingtheDragon: Yeah, let's invade land belonging to one of the most modern and well equipped armies with our young and untrained men. [[TemptingFate What can possibly go wrong?]].

* ''La Asombra Excursión de Samba en las Islas Malvinas,'' ("Samba's Amazing Adventure in the Falkland Islands") features the titular schoolboy traveling back in time to witness the events of 1982. As this is a children's educational cartoon series funded by the Argentine government, the episode includes such factual highlights of the War as the [[BlatantLies bombing of HMS ''Invincible'' by a lone Argentine Etendard]] and the [[BlatantLies Gurkha Regiment's defeat in hand-to-hand fighting with Argentine conscripts at the Battle of Mount Longdon.]]