The Falklands Legacy with Max Hastings

'30 years ago, Britain went to war,

'probably for the last time

'all on its own, without allies.

'That extraordinary conflict, which I reported as a journalist,

'boosted Britain's confidence at home and standing abroad.

'It achieved a famous victory many doubted could be won.'

The prestige of the armed forces soared,

emboldening Margaret Thatcher's successors

to use them abroad, amazingly enthusiastically.

'The Falklands transformed the fortunes of one prime minister

'and played a part in persuading another that the British people

'approve of wars.

'And while in 1982 Argentine invaders surrendered,

'their government today still clamours noisily

'for possession of the islands.'

Viva Malvinas! APPLAUSE

30 years on, the Falklands legacy seems full of ironies.

The war created a strategic commitment,

which British governments had never seriously recognised

before it was fought, and has since cost us billions.

The islands' inhabitants

remain the 3,000 most expensively defended people on Earth.

The 1982 South Atlantic campaign was a triumph for the armed forces

but as for its place in history,

did it mark the start of a national revival

or was it just a dramatic diversion on the path of our decline?

CHEERING

On Saturday 3rd July, 1982,

less than three weeks after the Falklands War ended

and before the task force was even home,

Britain's prime minister came here

to the unlikely setting of Cheltenham Race Course

to sing a victory song to a rally of the Tory faithful.

'Here, the Prime Minister set out her stall

'for the rest of her reign in office.

'Britain was back. Its post-World War II decline was over.'

We faced them squarely, and we were determined to overcome.

That is increasingly the mood of Britain.

Now, once again, Britain is not prepared to be pushed around.

We have ceased to be a nation in retreat.

APPLAUSE

'The modern Falklands saga began 8,000 miles south of Cheltenham,

'where a national government was struggling with economic woes

'and bitter unpopularity.

'The Argentine military dictatorship

'decided that a short, sharp triumph over British colonialism

'was just what it needed to rescue its fortunes.

'On April 2nd, 1982,

'its forces invaded one of the last outposts of the British Empire,

'a cluster of islands few people had ever thought about.

'The landing of Argentine Marines

'prompted a brief frenzy of triumphalism in Buenos Aires

'and a huge political crisis in Britain.'

'The World At One this Friday lunchtime.

'Argentine Marines are reported to have landed on the Falklands.'

I was in the middle or writing a book about the Second World War

when the Falklands crisis erupted.

I dropped everything for a berth with Thatcher's task force,

because I thought that it was going to be

the most extraordinary colonial drama of modern history,

and so indeed it proved.

For ten weeks of 1982,

the Falklands conflict gripped the imagination of the world.

'Both ships were hit. Sir Galahad was immediately in flames.

'The helicopters queued up to join the perilous rescue.'

It was intensely, if weirdly, romantic,

short, and above all, victorious.

'The mark of war will never be erased from the islands' life.'

It became the most extraordinary experience of my life

and of many others who sailed and marched with the task force.

There IS a white flag flying over Stanley. Bloody marvellous.

Attacking. Stand by.

'To understand why the war made such an impact on Britain,

'we must try to see where it fitted into our past.

'Growing up in the aftermath of World War II,

'many of my generation were invited to rejoice, and keep rejoicing,

'in Britain's triumph over Nazism

'through a series of terrific war movies.'

You're going to have a chance to hit the enemy harder

and more destructively than any small force has ever done before!

'The Falklands merged, almost seamlessly,

'into Britain's cherished legend of the Second World War.

'Victory in the South Atlantic

'inspired a revival of our historic enthusiasm

'for seeing ourselves as a warrior nation.'

I name this ship Ark Royal.

May God protect her and all who sail in her.

'In 1950, the then-Queen launched the biggest ship

'in the Royal Navy's history.

'Ark Royal would become a symbol

'of British naval and military pretensions around the world.

'As war winners,

'we felt entitled to keep an empire we could no longer afford,

'together with armed forces around 750,000 strong.

'We kept fighting - in Kenya, Korea, Cyprus, Malaya.

'But Suez changed everything.

'The 1956 attempt to retake the canal

'became Britain's last big military adventure

'before the Falklands War.

'An Anglo-French task force landed in Egypt and was pushing inland

'when the United States wielded its economic might

'to force a humiliating withdrawal.

'Suez became the foremost symbol of Britain's decline

'and retreat from Empire.'

'Totally and forever, Britain was on the way out.'

'The United States rubbed in unwelcome truths

'about our shrunken status,

'most notoriously when former Secretary of State Dean Acheson

'made a 1962 speech to West Point cadets.'

'Great Britain has lost an Empire and has not yet found a role.'

Acheson's words prompted a memorable sketch

in the BBC satire show That Was The Week That Was.

-Acheson's wild words have caused an international furore.

-Nonsense!

'That Was The Week played out a fantasy exchange

'between Prime Minister Harold Macmillan

'and President Jack Kennedy

'which seemed, to many British people, too true to be funny.'

Eh, what does Acheson think, Jack? It's Harold here.

Harold Macmillan.

M-A-C... Ah...

I'm calling from London.

Now, looky here,

this thing doesn't represent the views of your government, does it?

Oh.

'In 1968, HMS Eagle, Ark Royal's sister ship, quit Hong Kong.

'A nation that wants to call itself a great power

'must be capable of independent action.

'The Labour government's withdrawal of our forces

'from east of Suez

'proclaimed to the world that this was no longer possible

'for impoverished Britain.'

We are withdrawing more quickly,

from the Far East and the Middle East,

and making big consequential savings in defensive expenditure.

We are recognising that we are no longer a superpower.

'As part of a series of 1960s defence cuts,

'plans to replace the striker carriers Eagle and Ark Royal

'were branded unaffordable and cancelled.

'Within a decade, both ships would be decommissioned, leaving Britain

'without a big carrier to project power,

'and support so-called "out-of-area operations".

'The BBC's James Cameron saw the end of the east of Suez era.'

There goes the last of the gunboats.

She'll almost certainly never come back. We'll never come back.

Not in the way we used to think of ourselves.

But nobody seems to have decided

what sort of a future Britain wants.

'Yet in 1975, a politician thrust herself

'to the front of the national stage

'who did know what she wanted Britain to be.

'Margaret Thatcher was elected leader of the Conservative Party.'

'We're not living up to the best in our character.'

'With speeches delivered at the low point

'of Britain's post-war fortunes, she offered a vision of a nation that might once again

'achieve self-respect.'

The same spirit that made us a great nation is still there,

but somehow we're not using it.

There was an awful sense of the inevitability of decline.

An economy that was stuck in the past, in us, on the margins,

slowly slipping away,

and everyone talking about "the British problem".

I do not intend to be the first woman prime minister

of a mediocre and declining Britain.

Good afternoon, Prime Minister!

'When the Conservatives won the 1979 election,

'Mrs Thatcher got her chance to reverse the nation's course.'

There is now work to be done.

'But her first years saw strikes, soaring inflation,

'civil disorder, and harsh economic medicine.'

I will not change just to court popularity.

'Even Thatcher, the proponent of British greatness,

'determined to save money

'by imposing yet further reductions on the armed forces.

'The Royal Navy was to shrink by 20%.

'Its newest and most expensive ship, Invincible, faced the axe.

'Her crew, which included Prince Andrew, were told their vessel,

'pride of the fleet, was to be sold to Australia.'

Naturally, we think we serve in the best ship in the Royal Navy.

We're all very happy with her

and we're most disappointed that she is going to leave us.

'The sale of Invincible was all the more painful

'because the ship heralded a new age in naval aviation.

'Much smaller than the old Ark Royal,

'she could nonetheless provide a platform

'for the revolutionary Sea Harrier fighter.

'The cuts devastated the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Henry Leach.'

He was a wonderful man, Henry Leach. He was a sailor's sailor.

He and John Nott, the defence secretary,

simply could not get on at all.

John Nott was determined to castrate the Royal Navy.

'For Leach, the sale of Invincible was the ultimate betrayal.

'Just months before the outbreak of the Falklands War,

'the First Sea Lord was on a collision course

'with his defence secretary.'

Modern sailors fight more of their battles ashore than they do afloat.

One icy winter's day in November 1981,

the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Henry Leach,

took the slow, slow train to remotest Cornwall

to interrupt defence secretary John Nott

in the midst of a shooting party

to try to stop him selling the carrier Invincible

to the Australians.

'As a young officer in World War II,

'Leach had been involved in the last big gun surface action

'by a British battleship, the sinking of the Scharnhorst.

'His father had been killed when the battleship he commanded

'was sunk by Japanese aircraft, off Malaya.'

He'd been with his father the night before he was killed

in the Prince of Wales, when it and the Repulse were sunk.

And Henry knew the value of aviation, the value of air cover.

The main reason, of course, they were lost

was because there was no air cover.

He was determined to make sure that such things didn't happen again.

'The Admiral reached the defence secretary's refuge,

'Caerhays Castle in Cornwall, late in the afternoon

'after an exasperating series of train delays.'

After dinner, in this superbly traditional setting,

the doughty old sea dog and the politician sat down

to have the bitter row which Mrs Thatcher herself

had flatly refused to meet the Admiral for.

Leach, like every sailor, wanted the Royal Navy

to maintain the means to project power far abroad.

Nott had simply been mandated by the Prime Minister to cut costs,

scrap ships and concentrate defence in Europe.

The Admiral could have saved his rail fare.

The defence secretary refused to budge.

'The Thatcher government's brutal defence review

'caused morale in the sea service to plummet.

When you want to say something, say it.

'Young officers such as Chris Parry then was, racked their brains

'about what to do to prove the Navy still served a purpose.'

Everybody was bemoaning what that would mean for the Navy

and also for our careers.

And then somebody said,

"What we need is a good war against somebody

"to prove to the public and the government

"how useful the Navy is."

And so, amid a couple of pints,

we started discussing who might be a suitable opponent.

You know, not too difficult, not too easy.

And we eventually settled on the country

we thought was just about right.

And the real surprise was it was Argentina.

'In April 1982, after decades in which budgets were slashed

'and the Royal Navy deemed increasingly irrelevant,

'fate threw the Admirals a wildly-unexpected lifeline.'

Admiral Leach got the miracle he needed

to save his beloved carriers,

not from the Thatcher government

but from the military junta in Buenos Aires.

As soon as he heard Argentina was about to invade the Falklands,

he rushed down to the House of Commons.

Blazing with gold braid and ribbons,

he found the Prime Minister with his old adversary,

the defence secretary.

"Britain," he said, "could and must sail a task force,"

because, "if we do not, in another few months,

"we shall be living in a different country

"whose word counts for little."

Leach's superbly melodramatic intervention

not only saved some warships from the scrap yard,

they also determined Thatcher to fight.

HORN BLOWS

'HMS Invincible sailed for the South Atlantic just days later,

'the deal with the Australians suspended.

'She was joined by Hermes, designated flagship

'of the Royal Navy's biggest task force since Suez.

'Hermes had been reprieved from the breaker's yard.

'The Royal Navy had to requisition

'two of the country's most famous cruise liners

'to transport the troops.

'Mrs Thatcher was determined to reverse the political humiliation

'which some thought would break her government.

'I sailed on Canberra.

'It was an emotional moment,

'casting off for the 8,000-mile passage to the Falklands.'

'It was a weird feeling

'to be preparing for war aboard a cruise liner.

'Though, at that stage,

'few of us really believed it would come to a fight.'

'I'd reported many conflicts,

'but never a big, British naval and military operation.'

'There was something very special

'about going to watch one's own people fight.

MUSIC: "Rule, Britannia"

'Slowly we came to understand that the Prime Minister,

'having determined upon a showdown,

'was throwing every resource at Britain's command

'into her huge gamble.'

Margaret Thatcher said,

once she'd determined on recovering the Falkland Islands,

every single national asset would be mobilised

in order to enable that to happen.

'The amphibious force approached the Falklands after six weeks at sea.

'War had, by now, suddenly become intensely real.

'The task force faced a deadly threat from the Argentine Air Force,

'which battered the Royal Navy.

'The British lacked many things in facing the enemy onslaught,

'but their planes proved terrific.

'Simon Hargreaves is, today, a unique survivor.

'Last among the South Atlantic Sea Harrier pilots

'who is still flying fast jets.'

'He and his fellow airmen provided the air support

'which alone made it narrowly feasible to recover the Falklands.'

25, I was. Very much a surprise, and very exciting.

We were providing air cover, so just our presence there

provided protection for the ships in Falklands Sound.

Pivotal to the success of the task force

was the contribution of the aircraft carriers.

'Thatcher's government had cause to be very grateful

'that Invincible had not been flogged off.

'Sea Harriers were responsible for the destruction

'of most of the Argentine aircraft destroyed.'

We were very effective.

-I think it was 22 we shot down.

-For no loss.

It really was the dawn of a new era for naval aviation.

Right, well, this is where we keep the funny old relics

from 30 years ago.

Those boots walked from one end of the Falklands to the other,

and they did me pretty good while it was going on.

That was my old parachute smock, which I haven't worn for 30 years,

but I kept it because, gosh, it meant a lot to me 30 years ago.

'In one way, most of us found that sodden island

'comfortingly familiar, like Dartmoor or the Hebrides.

'But the icy cold and wet,

'the need for thousands of troops, carrying heavy loads to walk,

'to "yomp", as Marines put it, imposed a huge strain on every man.

'The one big advantage we had in that conflict

'was that it was militarily simple.

'If only we could take the islands' capital, Port Stanley,

'where most of the enemy were dug in, we would have won.'

That was a long, long walk. My God, it was rough.

God, one remembers those marshes so well. Having one's feet always wet.

And I never walked half as far as the Royal Marines and the paras.

I never forget going over to talk to a young Royal Marine.

I walked away. 20 minutes later, an Argentine air attack came in,

a terrible explosion, and that was the end of him.

And it was so strange thinking of that young man I'd been talking to

only a few minutes before.

The fiercest fighting of the war followed.

The British brilliantly exploited their skills.

First, yomping, patrolling and mine-clearing,

then staging night assaults on strongly-held enemy positions.

'The superiority of our men

'to the enemy's half-hearted conscripts really told.

'However tough that campaign,

'it perfectly suited the qualities of Britain's armed forces.

'On 14th June, the Argentines surrendered.'

There was a huge exhilaration about marching into Port Stanley.

Although filthy and utterly exhausted,

every man on the task force shared a euphoric high.

CHEERING

HORNS HONK

'Their arrival home sparked extraordinary British celebrations

'of a kind unseen since 1945.

'Many men returning from the South Atlantic

'felt that they landed in a different Britain.'

When we left Portsmouth in March, 1982,

I think we left a fairly demoralised, depressed

and downbeat country.

When we came back in July we returned to a country

that had a spring in its step, that was confident again,

looking forward to the future.

Few thought that the qualities which made this nation great

still lived in its people today.

A task force showed the way last spring,

and our country found its soul.

'The Falklands lit a candle of hope in many breasts

'that we weren't doomed forever to live with national decline.

'The war had nothing to do with Britain's real problems in 1982,

'but it was nonetheless, for many of us, a transforming moment,

'and sent the reputation of the armed forces soaring.

'Four pretty old men, sailing in Plymouth Sound in 2012,

'shared an experience in the South Atlantic that changed our lives.

'Nick Vaux led 42 Commando to Falklands victory.

'Ewen Southby-Tailor,

'one of the few men who knew the islands inside out,

'played a key role in guiding the task force.

'Peter Babbington won a Military Cross,

'leading the assault on Mount Harriet.

'The war made them, and the rest of the returning task force,

'popular heroes, in a fashion unseen since 1945.'

It had felt an incredible privilege to watch the task force

in the South Atlantic do something very remarkable,

to see the Brits really getting something right.

But how did you feel after it was all over?

The reception we received,

it didn't matter whether they were elderly people,

they were young people, it was extraordinary.

It was right across the spectrum of society.

Certainly, the drive home from Southampton in my car,

with my son waving a green beret out of the window.

You couldn't get through Bridport,

because of the pints of beer people brought out to you.

I think it cascaded down,

for probably about the next five to ten years.

People felt they'd done a really good job.

I believe it raised morale in the armed forces themselves,

because they had the chance to do something serious

and they did it well.

'The US military were mightily impressed.

'Peter Babbington witnessed their reaction first-hand,

'when he described his experiences

'to several thousand American Marines.'

I gave them a company commander's view

of what had happened to the Falklands.

The audience was totally quiet, for the period I was speaking,

and when I stopped to give them questions,

the whole cinema just stood up, and started to applaud.

It was a standing ovation by these guys.

It was quite overwhelming.

BRASS BAND PLAYS

'While the British celebrated

'around the world, even nations with no cause to love us

'were impressed by what our armed forces had done.'

The Russians were absolutely astounded.

They were actually hugely full of admiration, and also worried.

They suddenly realised that a NATO country

that wasn't America, a European NATO country,

would fight for a principle

and that, perhaps, NATO wasn't such a pushover.

I'll never forget Egyptian journalists

showing me the cover of Newsweek magazine

with a picture of HMS Hermes steaming south,

and the headline "The Empire Strikes Back".

It showed that Britain was not to be taken for granted,

that here was a country prepared to fight back.

MUSIC: "Rule, Britannia"

'Margaret Thatcher found her personal standing

'transformed by the war,

'the sea change first signalled at the Beaconsfield by-election,

'fought on 27th May at the height of the conflict.

'The Tories, at the start of the Falklands crisis,

'were politically beleaguered.

'They'd been losing by-elections to the SDP and trailed in the polls.

'Beaconsfield would be a critical political test.'

What was the expectation in the Tory camp

before this by-election campaign started?

The Tory hierarchy were terrified we were going to lose,

and they threw everything at this by-election.

They brought in professional agents from all round the country.

They were spending so much money,

I, as treasurer of the party, refused to take the responsibility for it,

cos I knew they couldn't keep within the financial limits.

'The Labour candidate was a CND enthusiast

'who would later experience such a transformation

'that some people considered him Margaret Thatcher's successor.

'29-year-old Tony Blair was fighting his first campaign

'in a normally-safe Conservative seat.'

Although we thought we would not win Beaconsfield,

we thought we had a good chance of upping our votes

from the last election.

'The BBC's man covering the by-election was Michael Cockerell.'

How much impact did the Falklands War make on the by-election here?

It wasn't stated, but the whole Conservative campaign

was wrapped up in a Union Jack, I think.

I remember the Conservative agent saying,

"We don't need to do any canvassing here,

"the Ministry of Defence is doing it for us."

-THATCHER:

-Argentine nationals...

-'Tim Smith, the Tory candidate,

'brandished a message from Mrs Thatcher

'proclaiming that the by-election was really a referendum

'on the Government's conduct of the South Atlantic crisis.

'Tony Blair thought there was only one proper answer to that.'

Tony was definitely anti-war.

A war just wasn't necessary.

He said, "We must keep looking for a negotiated settlement.

"We can't let the wishes of the islanders determine the Falklands."

We weren't prepared to fight an election on a war base.

Suddenly, the whole country was behind Maggie Thatcher

and we were completely floored.

I think it was just so overwhelming.

People were cheering when the Belgrano went down

and it was really very sad.

-Smith, Timothy John.

-Conservative.

-23,000...

'The Conservatives won by a landslide.'

-Blair, Anthony Charles Linton.

-Labour.

-3,886.

Labour's vote share in Beaconsfield was hard,

and Blair lost his deposit.

This would prove the only election he lost

in a 25-year political career.

We were all extremely disappointed that it had turned out so badly.

I mean, Tony was really, really disappointed.

We had thought that people might have thought about other issues,

and voted for us.

But they didn't.

Tony Blair, afterwards, said to Robin Cook,

"The thing I learnt from the Beaconsfield by-election

"is that wars make prime ministers popular."

'In Beaconsfield, as across the country,

'a "Falklands factor" was becoming a potent political force.'

# There's only one Maggie Thatcher One Maggie Thatcher. #

Before the Falklands War,

Margaret Thatcher was the most unpopular prime minister in British history.

After its end, almost 50% of respondents said that success

had boosted their opinion of her.

In April, the Tories lagged Labour in almost every opinion poll.

By July, they were an amazing 27 points ahead.

Public opinion hates long and inconclusive wars.

But, my, how it loves a quick victory.

Succeeding prime ministers have seen what the Falklands War

did for Mrs Thatcher, did for her standing, did for her politically.

It gave her a sort of aura.

The Boadicea image, the warrior, wrapped in the Union Flag,

going into battle and vanquishing her enemies.

'The Conservatives went on to win the 1983 general election,

'with some help from the dire state of Michael Foot's Labour Party,

'but also from a popular revival

'which had started in the South Atlantic.

'Tony Blair was one of the few successful Labour newcomers in 1983,

'winning the safe common seat of Sedgefield.

'A quarter of a century later, the two past political adversaries

'met again for the 25th anniversary commemoration of the Falklands War.

'Blair was then in the last weeks of his own premiership.

'He told an interviewer that, as national leader,

'he would have responded to the Argentine invasion

'just as Mrs Thatcher did.

'The Falklands conflict

'left a legacy that powerfully influenced both,

'and which is still evident in Britain's foreign commitments.

'In 1990, Kuwait was invaded by the Iraqi Army,

'sparking a new international crisis

'in Mrs Thatcher's last months in power.

'She urged the Americans to lead a stand against Saddam Hussein.'

Iraq's invasion of Kuwait defies every principle

for which the United Nations stands.

If we let it succeed, no small country can ever feel safe again.

Thatcher promised British military support

for the American-led coalition to free Kuwait.

For decades, the great powers had been wary of joining wars,

especially in the Middle East amid the threat of nuclear Armageddon,

but the Falklands War made force seem once more

a tactical option, including for British prime ministers.

War became a useable instrument.

It got us over the hump that, actually, you know,

war would be so horrific that we wouldn't want to go there.

Actually, war wasn't that horrific. The loss of life wasn't that great.

So, it made war useable.

So that was the long-term foreign policy effect.

53,000 British personnel deployed with the coalition to free Kuwait.

The Falklands would be the last war

Britain was capable of fighting alone.

Ironically, renewed Defence cuts by Mrs Thatcher

had left our military barely capable of fielding an armoured division.

The operation was swift and successful.

Once again Western governments got the message that war could work.

I do think the Falklands gave us

a delusion of the effectiveness of military power.

I think it whetted prime ministers' appetites for this sort of thing.

An important part of Mrs Thatcher's legacy to her successors

was a view that Britain must be seen to walk tall in the world.

15 years after the Falklands War,

the former Labour candidate for Beaconsfield fought an election for the tenancy of Downing Street

on a very different agenda from the one that he'd had back in 1982.

BROADCAST: 'In a rapidly-changing world,

'we seem somehow to have lost our sense of purpose.'

SNORING

'Now someone has emerged who is determined to give it back to us.

'He is the most-talked-about politician of his generation.'

Weeks before the 1997 election, Tony Blair delivered a speech

in which he enfolded himself in the Union Jack

in a fashion that came naturally to Mrs Thatcher,

but then seemed amazing in a Labour leader.

I am a British patriot, and I am proud of being a British patriot.

The Britain in my vision is not a Britain

turning its back on the world - narrow, shy, uncertain.

It is a Britain confident of its place in the world, sure of itself,

able to engage with the world and provide leadership in the world

precisely because we are confident of our own place in the world.

They wanted to recapture patriotism.

And that speech in the lead up to the election was making it clear

that he was patriotic, the Labour Party was patriotic,

it wasn't the preserve of the Tory Party,

and he saw Britain having a role in the world,

and wanted us to have a leading position.

Patriotism was a big theme of Blair's 1997 Labour election victory celebration.

Britain's new leader did not start out

intending to take the country to war,

but crises have a way of making all our rulers see things differently.

This is something that happens to Prime Ministers.

once they've been elected, they realise they have more freedom of manoeuvre in foreign policy

than they do in domestic policy.

Trying to reform the welfare system or change the economy

is a grinding, difficult political business.

In foreign policy it's easier to make a decision

and see it happen much more quickly.

In 1998 a new Iraq crisis persuaded Tony Blair

to participate in a brisk bombing campaign,

after which he flew to the Gulf to congratulate RAF crews.

He would end up putting Britain's armed forces in harm's way

more often than any of his predecessors.

The following year, Albanian refugees began pouring

in tens of thousands out of Kosovo amid a Serb reign of terror.

Before deploying British ground troops on this new mercy mission,

Blair consulted the victor of the Falklands War.

He thought very long and very hard about it.

He had many sleepless nights worrying about it.

He asked me to bring Mrs Thatcher in,

and I got Mrs Thatcher to come into Downing Street

and meet with him and talk to him about it.

It was someone who he could share the angst of that decision with,

because she'd had to make a similar decision herself.

The Kosovo intervention was successful.

Blair, the Falklands sceptic,

was becoming Blair, the enthusiast for committing troops

to what he considered moral war.

The British public seemed supportive,

if by no means enthusiastic.

The South Atlantic model for a quick, successful conflict

still seemed valid.

The Falklands itself created an expectation that actually,

wars were short, sharp, decisive and delivered what you wanted to do.

And ironically, we had a couple of coalition campaigns,

the first Iraq War and the war over Kosovo in 1999,

which conformed to the Falklands expectation.

So for the last quarter of the 20th century,

there was this presumption in the Western world,

and particularly in Britain,

that actually war was quite a good deliverer of policy objectives.

But the Bush-Blair alliance, first to fight in Afghanistan

and then to invade Iraq, changed everything.

British governments now learnt the painful lessons

about the perils of following our key ally too blindly, too far,

despite all their mutual exchanges of flattery.

Prime Minister, the entire world salutes you

and your gallant people and gallant nation.

Yet, contrary to the legend of Margaret Thatcher's cosy relationship with Ronald Reagan,

the Falklands War tested the Anglo-American alliance to its limits.

In 1982, it was a bitter revelation for the Prime Minister

to discover that most of the administration,

including the President, wanted to withhold support from Britain.

It's a very difficult situation for the United States,

because we're friends with both of the countries

engaged in this dispute.

Reagan was told by key advisers that a Falklands War

might damage Washington's South American clients.

UN Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick was foremost among those

anxious for the welfare of the fascist junta in Buenos Aires.

The Argentines of course have claimed for 200 years that they own

those islands, and the British have claimed that they own those islands.

And we have said we have no position on who owns those islands.

Now, if the Argentines own the islands,

then moving troops into them is not armed aggression.

As British troops prepared to make their final push for Port Stanley,

Kirkpatrick urged Reagan to make Thatcher hold back

from humiliating Argentina on the battlefield.

It was Memorial Day, 31st May, when America commemorates its war dead.

After meeting Kirkpatrick, Reagan drove to Arlington Cemetery

where, in a characteristically sentimental speech,

he recalled World War II's sacrifice and principles

at the very moment he was urging Thatcher to abandon both.

Winston Churchill said of those he knew in World War II,

"They seemed to be the only young men

"who could laugh and fight at the same time."

Each died for a cause he considered more important than his own life.

To defend values which make up what we call civilisation.

And how they must have wished that no other generation of young men

to follow would have to undergo that same experience.

On the same day that President Reagan spoke,

he personally telephoned Margaret Thatcher on the hotline

to urge her to accept a diplomatic compromise

rather than inflict outright military defeat

on Argentina in the Falklands.

His administration believed that such an outcome

threatened American interests

and its crusade against the Left in South America.

The Prime Minister rebuffed the President with brutal directness,

saying, "I have to take them now.

"I didn't lose some of my best ships and some of my finest lives

"to leave quietly after a ceasefire without the Argentines withdrawing.

"This is democracy and our islands,

"and the very worst thing for democracy would be

"if we failed now."

Here, at a critical moment in our fortunes,

was evidence of just how roughly the United States could treat us,

exposing the limitations of the so-called "special relationship"

at moments when our two countries' strategic interests diverged.

It was amazing luck that the United States Defence Secretary,

Casper Weinberger, was a staunch Anglophile.

He, almost single-handed, secured critical weapons intelligence

and logistical support for the British Falklands War effort.

British policy-makers learnt their lesson from that experience

that we better fight our future wars with the Americans or not at all.

Since 1982, British defence policy

has been ever more closely locked into alliances

for political advantage and from military necessity.

In 2003, Tony Blair's government

deployed 46,000 British servicemen in Iraq.

It was the last time in history that Britain would own soldiers

to send such numbers to war, and the story had no happy ending.

In 2006 the armed forces, fresh from perceived failure in Iraq,

accepted a dramatically-expanded role in Afghanistan.

Tony Blair dispatched a brigade to Helmand Province.

The Falklands War was a huge challenge,

but it provided a perfect theatre for the Royal Marines,

paras and special forces

to display their skills against weak opposition.

Victory gave some people exaggerated ideas about what we could do.

Fighting al-Qaeda and Taliban insurgents on their home turf,

in highly political wars among the people,

proved tougher than beating the Argentines.

Generals much share with ministers blame for some of the things

that have gone wrong with our wars since 1982.

Their can-do spirit persuaded them to sign up for some under-resourced

and ill-considered campaigns that have led to a lot of grief.

You deal with a general or an admiral or an air marshal

and he comes marching in, often in uniform, and says it can be done.

And I've seen successive chiefs of the Defence staff

manipulate prime ministers and senior ministers

in a quite extraordinary way.

In the case of both Iraq

and Afghanistan, the military were very gung-ho, keen to be involved,

because they wanted to remain an effective fighting force.

It's by participating in wars in that way that they can do so.

There's no doubt in my mind,

from my experience in the Ministry of Defence,

that the Army saw the interventions in Iraq

and Afghanistan as their "Falklands moment".

The ability to impress on the nation

and politicians about their utility into the future.

And there was this idea, frankly, that if you don't use forces,

you're going to lose them.

But in Helmand, the Army found itself fighting battles

as fierce as any since the Falklands.

And even when they won the firefights, they proved unable

to force an outcome in an intensely political conflict.

Just as we gained considerable prestige by our success

in the war over the Falklands I think our prestige,

particular in military terms, has been diminished

by our participation in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The two central factors

which were not present in the Falklands,

but which are the problem in Iraq and Afghanistan,

are the question of the legitimacy of going in,

the question of the local support.

What really crippled us in the end in Iraq and Afghanistan

is that the Iraqi or the Afghan population,

in the end, didn't consent and support.

And it's that political problem of winning over the imaginations

of people that didn't bedevil us in the Falklands, and it has since.

The South Atlantic conflict

brought a joyous British public onto the streets

to celebrate a swift success.

The long campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, by contrast,

inspired mass protest.

The dead began to come home in a painfully public fashion,

accompanied by rituals much more elaborate than those

that greeted 1982 South Atlantic casualties.

British society had become markedly more averse to risk,

and more sceptical of the merits of sacrifice.

At the end of the Falklands War, the parents of a British para,

Pamela and Richard Jones, were toasting British victory.

Everybody had been out celebrating. Everybody knew us.

They were saying, "Oh, great, Craig will be back,"

all this kind of thing.

So after celebrating the war's over,

then we had the shock of being told he'd been killed.

We'd believed he'd got through.

He was the last soldier killed.

He was killed at about 8:30 on the last day,

and then overnight it all finished and they surrendered.

Ashes to ashes...

Most of the 255 servicemen who died in the Falklands

were buried where they fell, in accordance with tradition.

But the Joneses joined a campaign to have their son brought home.

Amen.

We wrote to so many people, and there wasn't any strong argument back,

or strong letters back saying, "No, we can't do it," or whatever.

So, they were thinking about it, then a few more letters went

and other people wrote,

and I think they realised then it was time to change.

In November 1982, Craig Jones' body arrived home

with those of 63 comrades,

at a low-key harbour-side ceremony.

The public scarcely noticed,

but a precedent was set for the return of our dead

from foreign fields that's now become a focus for public sentiment.

After a six-month tour in Afghanistan,

the 9/12th Lancers recently staged a homecoming march

through Northampton, near where Craig Jones grew up.

Parades like this seem to me very different from those of 1982.

People turn out to applaud the courage and prowess

of ordinary soldiers, not the cause for which they've been fighting.

I've got a feeling that we may find that the Falklands

was the last really popular war that Britain ever fights.

A lot of young men died,

but you could see something tangible at the end -

that we'd given back the freedom of people who we consider our own.

The Falklands felt very different, even at the time,

from today's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, didn't it?

In Afghanistan, we go on, year after year after year,

and it's difficult to sometimes, for the man on the street,

to understand why we're doing what we're doing

and what will be - is there a tangible finish, or a finish line?

Can someone draw a line in the sand and say,

"Once we pass that, we've won?"

Some politicians question whether,

after the Iraq and Afghan experiences,

the public will ever again support deployment of a big army abroad

unless Britain is directly threatened.

The Cameron government has been strongly influenced

by public opinion in its decision to seek an early exit from Afghanistan.

I believe the country needs to know there's an end point to all of this.

So from 2015, there will not be troops

in anything like the numbers there are now,

and crucially they will not be in a combat role.

It's a typical irony of history that after all

our expensive modern wars, hot and cold,

we discover that the latest threat to the West

comes not from enemy missiles or invaders but from economics.

Since the 2008 banking crisis exploded,

we have been growing to realise

that our children will live in a poorer country.

Britain is not as rich or successful as we'd thought.

And this impacts painfully on the Defence budget

and on our ability to go to war.

Well, here we are 30 years on from the Falklands War.

And a visitor who landed for the first time from Mars

since Margaret Thatcher became prime minister

might think not much had changed.

Angry trade unionists marching and striking, the economy reeling,

Defence spending slashed.

Today our governments believe that Britain can no longer afford

the sort of armed forces that sometimes enabled us

to punch above our weight and to win the Falklands War.

Military might has gone out of fashion in Britain, maybe forever.

Early in December 2010,

the 1980s vintage carrier Ark Royal made its last voyage.

To save cash, the carrier,

along with the Harriers decisive for Falklands victory,

were to be scrapped.

It was one of those spooky days.

Perfectly, sort of funereal sort of moments

as the ship appeared with tugs out of the fog,

and rather sort of mournfully sailed past

into Portsmouth for the last time.

It was very upsetting. Definitely shed a silent tear or two.

The cuts were consequences of a so-called Strategic Defence Review

that was really a ruthless cost-cutting exercise.

Every such shake-up since Suez has cut our forces,

even if few governments have been willing honestly

to cut our commitments.

But today we really are scraping bottom.

Britain's Defence budget could fall below 2% of GDP.

We're spending less of our national income

on security than ever in modern history.

We're getting pretty close to what I would call critical mass.

Some people would say we've been below it. We've always taken risks.

My worry is now the risks we're taking may well be unacceptable

and catch us out.

If you want to see the kind of hardware

that won the Falklands War, it's now found only in a museum.

A new generation knows almost nothing about our martial past

or indeed about the Falklands.

We all grew up to think of British history as a terrific,

romantic pageant in which we fought endless wars and battles.

And nowadays, I don't think the way you're taught history

is anything like that at all, is it? Do you learn about Trafalgar?

-No, we don't.

-Would you know what year Trafalgar was?

-No.

I mean, would you know about Waterloo?

Any, anybody make a guess what year Waterloo was?

-Was it 1600s, or 1800s?

-1815.

Now, I think perhaps our generation,

we grew up more to believe that being patriotic

had something to do with fighting wars,

and nowadays you all don't feel that.

Maybe it's right that, in the 21st century, you should feel that way,

but gosh, it's different.

New generations know as little about our modern defence

as they do about our fighting past.

But they may yet be surprised to find that soldiers,

or our lack of them, will still matter as the 21st-century advances.

I think we shall live to be sorry if we forget history

and treat Britain's defence capability as an optional extra.

I'm no supporter of reckless military adventures,

for some of Blair's wars seem madness,

but a grown-up country should have grown-up armed forces.

I don't want to see more so-called "moral interventions"

but I do want Britain to be capable of defending its interests

against its enemies, heaven knows who, where or when.

Every nation is hopeless at predicting

what the next war will be like.

Where's the threat coming from?

What you have to do is to have the kind of forces

which can react quickly to the unexpected,

and I would think that's a lesson from the Falklands.

You cannot have forces that are too rigid,

too focused on specific threats,

or you won't have the capacity ever to go and do things where

you are not involved in wars of choice, you're in wars of necessity.

British governments in future need to show better judgement

about staying out of the wrong wars.

But strong armed forces give us

a standing in the world that still matters.

We can't afford just to resign from the international stage,

and in addition to soft power, ambassadors and aid,

we also need sometimes to be able to use hard power.

This isn't just about romantic nostalgia for a lost past,

it's about being able to defend our vital national interests

against enemies, unless we think we'll never have any again.

One of the best results of the Falklands War

was that it caused the fall of Argentina's military dictatorship.

The country's been a democracy ever since,

but Britain's 30th anniversary present from the current government

is a bombardment of angry words, renewing its claim to the Islands.

Argentine TV broadcast an advertisement

professing to show what life would be like on the Falklands

if they become Las Malvinas.

ADVERTISMENT: Wake up, it's a beautiful morning. Have a nice day.

The 1982 story isn't over.

Britain faces real dilemmas about how to respond to Buenos Aires,

and the bad news is that we're increasingly diplomatically isolated,

even from the United States.

We want very much to encourage both countries to sit down.

Now, we cannot make either one do so,

but we think it is the right way to proceed.

HYMN: "Praise My Soul, The King Of Heaven"

After the 1982 war was over,

the British gave thanks for victory in St Paul's Cathedral.

Among scores of memorials to our conflicts,

some of which saved the nation, the Falklands now has its place here.

For me, the war was a supreme romantic adventure,

a freak of history that I shall be forever grateful to have shared in.

But it seems almost as remote from modern Britain

as Trafalgar or Waterloo.

We should remember it though, with pride -

something Britain did really well.

We stood alone in a good cause

against the dictatorship's armed aggression.

We fought and won the Falklands War.

I think it'll come to be remembered as the last really popular conflict

Britain ever fights.

But as for its place in history,

it looks to me like a last imperial hurrah.

# Hallelujah, hallelujah

# Glorious in His faithfulness. #

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