Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Diversionary War and Argentina's Invasion of the Falkland Islands

2006; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 15; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09636410601028354

1556-1852

Amy Oakes,

International Development and Aid

Abstract Why do states launch diversionary conflicts? In particular, why did Argentina invade the Falkland Islands in 1982? The existing literature tends to analyze diversionary conflict by examining the direct relationship between domestic unrest (the independent variable) and the use of force (the dependent variable). But such an approach ignores critical variables that shape the likelihood of diversionary conflict. When states face domestic unrest, they have a number of options: they can launch a diversionary conflict, they can reform, or they can repress. We therefore need to consider which variables alter the attractiveness of each of these options, employing what I term "the policy alternatives approach." The decision to launch a diversionary conflict may result more from the inability to reform or repress, than it does from the perceived utility of using force to rally the public. An important variable that facilitates or constrains a state's ability to reform or repress is state extractive capacity. The policy alternatives approach enables a new explanation for the invasion of the Falklands, based on the interaction between domestic unrest and low state extractive capacity, and also highlights a number of other variables that may explain diversionary conflicts. I thank Richard Herrmann, John Mueller, Brian Pollins, Dominic Tierney, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. Notes 1In Argentina, the islands are known as Islas Malvinas. 2The diversionary war hypothesis is supported by a number of case studies and anecdotal evidence, but quantitative analyses suggest that there is, at best, only weak evidence of a general relationship between internal turmoil and war. For an excellent review, see Jack Levy, "The Diversionary Theory of War: A Critique," in A Handbook of War Studies, ed. Manus Midlarsky (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1989), 259–88. 3A number of recent studies suggest that the addition of policy alternatives to the diversionary theory of war may be useful for understanding the relationship between internal and external conflict. See, for example, D. Scott Bennett and Timothy Nordstrom, "Foreign Policy Substitutability and Internal Economic Problems in Enduring Rivalries," Journal of Conflict Resolution 44 (February 2000): 33–61; Kurt Dassel and Eric Reinhardt, "Domestic Strife and the Initiation of Violence at Home and Abroad," American Journal of Political Science 43 (January 1999): 56–85; Brett Ashley Leeds and David Davis, "Domestic Political Vulnerability and International Disputes," Journal of Conflict Resolution 41 (December 1997): 814–34; Diana Richards, T. Clifton Morgan, Rick K. Wilson, Valerie L. Schwebach, and Garry D. Young, "Good Times, Bad Times, and the Diversionary Use of Force," Journal of Conflict Resolution 37 (September 1993): 504–35; Paul K. Huth and Ellen Lusk-Okar, "Foreign Policy Choices and Domestic Politics: A Reexamination of the Link between Domestic and International Conflict," in Conflict in World Politics: Advances in the Study of Crisis, War, and Peace, ed. Frank P. Harvey and Ben D. Moore (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998), 62–95. See especially Christopher Gelpi, "Democratic Diversions: Governmental Structure and the Externalization of Domestic Conflict," Journal of Conflict Resolution 41 (April 1997): 255–82. Gelpi's study suggests that repression may be the preferred alternative to diversionary conflicts for non-democratic states facing unrest. 4Openly expressed public dissatisfaction with the performance of the government will provoke—under the right conditions—a diversionary conflict. Signs of domestic unrest include protest demonstrations aimed at the national government, strikes, work stoppages intended to change government policy, riots, and armed attacks by organized groups targeted at the government. 5See Giacomo Chiozza and Hein Goemans, "Peace through Insecurity: Tenure and International Conflict," Journal of Conflict Resolution 47 (August 2003): 445–46. Chiozza and Goemans identify three causal logics in the diversionary war literature: gambling for resurrection, the scapegoat hypothesis, and the rally-around-the-flag or in-group/out-group hypotheses. They overlook, however, two additional reasons why diversionary conflicts may be initiated: the desire to simply distract the public from internal problems and the hope that a foreign policy success will demonstrate the government's competence to the public. Furthermore, gambling for resurrection is likely to be the motivation behind each of these explanations for diversionary action. As a result, I do not include this as a separate explanation for the initiation of a diversionary conflict. For a discussion of gambling for resurrection, see Richards, "Good Times, Bad Times"; George W. Downs and David M. Rocke, Optimal Imperfection? Domestic Uncertainty and Institutions in International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 68–71; Alastair Smith, "Diversionary Foreign Policy in Democratic Systems,"International Studies Quarterly 40, no. 1 (March 1996): 133–53. 6Arno J. Mayer, Dynamics of counterrevolution in Europe, 1870–1956 (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), 220–21. This is also essentially the logic of prospect theory, which states that leaders are risk acceptant with respect to losses and risk averse with respect to gains. That is, when a decision maker is faced with two undesirable options, and one option is certain to bring losses, then the second option will be chosen if it promises some hope of avoiding future losses—even at the risk of incurring even greater losses. See Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," Econometrica 47 (March 1979): 263–91; Jack Levy, "An Introduction to Prospect Theory," Political Psychology 13 (June 1992): 171–86. 7Regarding reform, I mean attempts by the government to liberalize the political system by, for example, increasing governing institutions' representativeness, allowing greater freedom of the press, and permitting political parties to form. A government adopts a policy of repression if it seeks to suppress domestic groups through internal policing or enacts restrictive legislation, such as banning political parties, halting elections, and withdrawing the right to freely assemble. 8Gordon Craig, "History as a Humanistic Discipline," in Historical Literacy, ed. Paul Gagnon (New York: Macmillan, 1989), 134. 9See David Baldwin, Economic Statecraft (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 144; Bennett and Nordstrom, "Foreign Policy Substitutability"; Benjamin Most and Harvey Starr, "International Relations Theory, Foreign Policy Substitutability, and 'Nice' Laws," World Politics 36 (April 1984): 383–406; Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, "Toward a Scientific Understanding of International Conflict: A Personal View," International Studies Quarterly (June 1985): 130; Benjamin A. Most and Harvey Starr, Inquiry, Logic, and International Politics (Columbia: University of South Carolina, 1989); David H. Clark and William Reed, "The Strategic Sources of Foreign Policy Substitution," American Journal of Political Science 49 (July 2005): 609–24. 10Thomas Christensen, Useful Adversaries: Grand Strategy, Domestic Mobilization, and Sino-American Conflict, 1947–1958 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 11. See also Fareed Zakaria, From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America's World Role (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 9; Graham Allison, The Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971), 144. 11Theda Skocpol, "Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Analysis in Current Research," in Bringing the State Back In, ed. Peter B. Evens, Dietrich Rueschmeyer, and Theda Skocpol (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 16–17. 12See, for example, Christensen, Useful Adversaries; Alan Lamborn, The Price of Power: Risk and Foreign Policy in Britain, France, and Germany (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1991); A.F.K.Organski and Jacek Kugler, The War Ledger (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981); David M. Rowe, "World Economic Expansion and National Security in Pre-World War I Europe," International Organization 53 (Spring 1999): 195–231; Skocpol, "Bringing the State Back In"; Harvey Starr, "Revolution and War: Rethinking the Linkage Between Internal and External Conflict," Political Research Quarterly 47 (June 1994): 481–507; Zakaria, From Wealth to Power. 13One could argue that the concept of extractive capacity is difficult to apply across regime types. However, Christensen finds that, while the exact process by which these states extract resources may be different, "the state-society constraints can be compared across very different types of regimes." Christensen,Useful Adversaries, 22. For a further discussion of this issue, see Jacek Kugler and Marina Arbetman, "Relative Political Capacity: Political Extraction and Political Reach," in Political Capacity and Economic Behavior, ed. Jacek Kugler and Marina Arbetman (Boulder: Westview Press, 1997), 11–45. 14Geoffrey Blainey, The Causes of War (New York: The Free Press, 1973), 87–88. Blainey does admit, however, that wars initiated by resource-poor states "could break out if other factors were pushing strongly toward war." Ibid., 95. 15For an excellent review of neo-classical realism, see Gideon Rose, "Neo-Classical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy," World Politics 51 (October 1998): 144–72. 16Zakaria, From Wealth to Power, 38 (emphasis in the original). See also Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 106. Note that while this logic may be consistent with realism, realist scholars often confront difficulties when attempting to explain the outbreak of these types of wars. Because they are initiated largely for domestic political reasons, diversionary conflicts may occur when there is no security threat. 17Leo Hazlewood, "Externalizing Systemic Stress: International Conflict as Adaptive Behavior," in Conflict Behavior and Linkage Politics, ed. Jonathan Wilkenfield (New York: David McKay, 1973), 173. Hazlewood also argues that a high "capacity to coerce" and high turmoil are related to diplomatic conflict and war. 18John Mueller, "Public Support for Military Ventures Abroad: Evidence From the Polls," in The Real Lessons of the Vietnam War: Reflections Twenty-Five Years After the Fall of Saigon, ed. John Norton Moore and Robert F. Turner (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 2002), 188. 19Paul Corner and Giovanna Procacci, "The Italian Experience of 'Total' Mobilization, 1915–1920," in State, Society, and Mobilization During the First World War, ed. John Horne (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 231. 20Arthur Stein, The Nation at War (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 87. 21For a discussion of the costs of repression, see Christian Davenport, "Multidimensional Threat Perception and State Repression: An Inquiry into Why States Apply Negative Sanctions," American Journal of Political Science 39 (August 1995): 683–713. 22See Alexander L. George. "Case Studies and Theory Development: The Method of Structured, Focused Comparison," in Diplomacy: New Approaches in History, Theory, and Policy, ed. Paul Gordon Lauren (New York: Free Press, 1979), 48; Gary King, Robert Keohane, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 228. 23For the application of the policy alternatives approach to additional cases, see Amy Oakes, "States in Crisis: How Governments Respond to Domestic Unrest" (PhD dissertation, The Ohio State University, March 2006). 24See Rubén O. Moro, The History of the South Atlantic Conflict: The War for the Malvinas (New York: Praeger, 1989), 7; Gary W. Wynia, Argentina: Illusions and Realities (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1986), 10; and Oscar Cardoso, Ricardo Kirschbaum, Eduardo van der Kooy, Falklands: The Secret Plot (Surry, UK: Preston Editions, 1987), 32. 25It is important to emphasize here that the purpose of this case study is to identify the cause(s) of the junta's initial decision to invade the Falklands, that is, to identify the necessary or sufficient conditions of this government's plan to invade this particular target at this moment in time. One can conceive of a number of rival causal schemes that could have resulted in an invasion. More important still, one can imagine alternate scenarios in which the state's extractive capacity was high, domestic unrest was minimal or non-existent, and Argentina still invaded the Falklands. Because other conditions could have produced the same or a similar outcome, one identifies a cause as necessary or sufficient knowing that it was not in any ultimate sense either necessary or sufficient. Yet this predicament can be escaped. One can reasonably claim that a cause was necessary or sufficient as long as one fully specifies the background factors that form the context in which the event occurred. Put differently, a condition can be necessary or sufficient in a particular context. If the escalating domestic unrest in Argentina and the state's low extractive capacity were necessary or sufficient for the junta to decide to invade the Falklands, we must describe, as much as possible, the background against which these factors assumed causal importance. This is not only required in order to produce a complete explanation of Argentina's invasion of the Falklands but also to identify which necessary conditions may be generalizable to other cases. It will enable one to distinguish, as much as possible, between those conditions that were necessary given the context in which the junta acted and those that might be necessary conditions for any government to initiate a diversionary conflict in any place and at any time. For further discussion, see John Gerring, Social Science Methodology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 149–51. For a discussion of the dangers and utility of the logic of necessary and sufficient condition for the analysis of individual cases, see Gary Goertz and Harvey Starr, "Introduction: Necessary Condition Logics, Research Design, and Theory," in Necessary Conditions: Theory, Methodology, and Applications, ed. Gary Goertz and Harvey Starr (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 3–12; and Gary Goertz, "The Substantive Importance of Necessary Condition Hypotheses," in Necessary Conditions. 26The simplest explanation, however, is that the military government decided to invade the Falklands simply for the glory of achieving a victory over a great power—Britain—and of retaking a territory of great symbolic importance. Although there is some evidence to support this claim, it does not explain the timing of the invasion. Galtieri and Anaya had been in power for some time (though Galtieri had not been president) before seriously considering an invasion. The decision to claim the Falklands was made in late 1981 when the unrest reached a fever pitch. See Daniel K. Gibran, The Falklands War: Britain Versus the Past in the South Atlantic (Jefferson: McFarland, 1998), 72–73; Arthur Gavshon and Desmond Rice, The Sinking of the Belgrano (London: Secker and Warburg, 1984), 57; Cardoso, Kirschbaum, and van der Kooy, Falklands, 69. 27See Gibran, The Falklands War, 65–66; Paul Eddy and Magnus Linklater, The Falklands War (London: Andre Deutsch, 1982), 29. 28Gibran, The Falklands War, 66. 29See also Alejandro Dabat and Luis Lorenzano, Argentina: The Malvinas and the End of Military Rule (London: Verso Editions, 1984), 15; Luis Alberto Romero, A History of Argentina in the Twentieth Century (University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 2002), 242. 30Britain's decision to lift its sanctions against and sell arms to the Chilean government appeared to confirm the junta's suspicions. See Lawrence Freedman and Virginia Gamba-Stonehouse, Signals of War: The Falklands Conflict of 1982 (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1990), 11. 31See Eddy and Linklater, The Falklands War, 28. 32A few weeks after coming to power, Galtieri confirmed that he was prepared to repudiate a 1972 treaty with Chile, which stated that any border disputes would be submitted to the International Court of Justice. See Martin Honeywell and Jenny Pearce, Falklands/ Malvinas: Whose Crisis? (London: Latin America Bureau, 1982), 80–81; Maz Hastings and Simon Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands (London: Michael Joseph, 1983), 47; Cardoso, Kirschbaum, and van der Kooy, Falklands, 22. 33 Falkland Islands Review: Report of a Committee of Privy Counsellors, Command 8787 (January, 1983), 43. 34See Cardoso, Kirschbaum, and van der Kooy, Falklands, 1–23. 35Richard C. Thornton, The Falklands Sting: Regan, Thatcher, and Argentina's Bomb (Washington, DC: Brassey's, 1998), 65–66. See also Virginia Gamba, The Falklands/Malvinas War: A Model for North-South Crisis Prevention (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1987), 105. 36Richard Ned Lebow, "Miscalculation in the South Atlantic: The Origins of the Falklands War," in Psychology and Deterrence, ed. Robert Jervis, Richard Ned Lebow, Janice Stein, and Patrick M. Morgan (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), 119. 37Lebow, "Miscalculation in the South Atlantic," 108. Moro similarly argues that "the government decided to seek alternative means to induce the British to resume serious negotiations without, however, discarding the military option should all others fail." Moro, The History of the South Atlantic Conflict, 7. 38Cardoso, Kirschbaum, and van der Kooy, Falklands, 144; Alexander Haig, Caveat: Realism, Reagan, and Foreign Policy (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1984), 282. 39See Moro, The History of the South Atlantic Conflict, 7; Wynia, Argentina, 10; Cardoso, Kirschbaum, and van der Kooy, Falklands, 32. 40There is some evidence that the talks were part of Argentina's plan to forcefully acquire the islands. The junta hoped and expected that Britain would not meet its demands at the February talks, giving it a pretext for invading the islands. Indeed, the junta was frustrated when the negotiations went better than expected. See Juan E. Corradi, The Fitful Republic: Economy, Society, and Politics in Argentina (Boulder: Westview Press, 1985), 19, 141–42; Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands, 50; and Cardoso, Kirschbaum, and van der Kooy, Falklands, 39. 41Jack Levy and Lily Vakili, "Diversionary Action by Authoritarian Regimes: Argentina in the Falklands/ Malvinas Case," in The Internationalization of Communal Strife, ed. Manus Midlarsky (New York: Routledge, 1992), 127. 42Levy and Vakili, "Diversionary Action," 123. 43William C. Smith, Authoritarianism and the Crisis of Argentine Political Economy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989), 231–42; Romero, A History of Argentina, 215–54; Paul Lewis, "The Right and Military Rule, 1955–1983," in The Argentine Right: Its History and Intellectual Origins, 1910–Present, ed. Sandra McGee Deutsch and Ronald H. Dolkart (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1993), 147–80. 44Paul Lewis, Guerillas and Generals: The "Dirty War" in Argentina (Westport: Praeger, 2002), 179. 45Romero, A History of Argentina, 234. 46Wynia, Argentina, 9 47In this same vein, it was rumored that Galtieri promised Anaya that he would invade the Falklands if the admiral backed his bid for the presidency. There is, however, no consensus regarding whether such a deal was ever made. For opinions on both sides of this issue, see Wynia, Argentina, 8–9; Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands, 46, 110–12; Thornton, The Falklands Sting, 73–75; Freedman and Gamba-Stonehouse, Signals of War, 3; Haig, Caveat, 277; Cardoso, Kirschbaum, and van der Kooy, Falklands, 6. 48David Pion-Berlin, Through Corridors of Power: Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in Argentina (University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 1997), 62. See also David Pion-Berlin, "The Fall of Military Rule in Argentina, 1976–1983," Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 27 (Summer 1985): 70; Corradi, The Fitful Republic, 138, 137. 49Gavshon and Rice, The Sinking of the Belgrano, 57. See also Honeywell and Pearce, Falklands/ Malvinas, 79; Smith, Authoritarianism, 244; Eddy and Linklater, The Falklands War, 62. 50It is noteworthy that the junta chose as its unifying mission virtually the only policy that also promised to increase public approval of the government. 51At most, there was an interaction between the domestic unrest and the conflict among the elite. After the domestic unrest began to escalate and the junta fragmented, the infighting among the military elite opened the door for the public to express its dissatisfaction with the government's performance. 52Levy and Vakili, "Diversionary Action," 122. 53Lewis, Guerillas and Generals, 181. 54Romero, A History of Argentina, 240. 55Gibran, The Falklands War, 70; Dabat and Lorenzano, Argentina, 76–77; Honeywell and Pearce, Falklands/ Malvinas, 82; Corradi, The Fitful Republic, 136–37; Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands, 48; Eddy and Linklater, The Falklands War, 30, 62; Romero, A History of Argentina, 242, 244; Moro, The History of the South Atlantic Conflict, 31; Freedman and Gamba-Stonehouse, Signals of War, 4; Wynia, Argentina, 12; Paul Lewis, "The Right and Military Rule," 191; Haig, Caveat, 296; Cardoso, Kirschbaum, and van der Kooy, Falklands, 7, 21, 75; Jimmy Burns, The Land that Lost Its Heroes: The Falklands, the Post-War, and Alfonsin (London: Bloomsbury, 1987), 30. A small number of scholars argue that domestic politics played a secondary role in the decision to invade. See Smith, Authoritarianism, 256; Gamba, The Falklands/Malvinas War, 131–32; Douglas Kinney, National Interest/National Honor: The Diplomacy of the Falklands Crisis (New York: Praeger, 1989), 61. 56See Pion-Berlin, Through Corridors of Power, 60; Gavshon and Rice, The Sinking of the Belgrano, 18. 57Corradi, The Fitful Republic, 136–37. 58Wynia, Argentina, 12. 59"President Galtieri Gives Inaugural Speech," Buenos Aires Domestic Service, 24 December 1981. 60Exactly what motivates leaders to act is always difficult to know. Sometimes the leaders themselves do not know. In cases in which government decision making is shrouded in secrecy and the press may not freely comment on the conduct of the state, uncovering the aims of leaders is a particularly challenging task. As a result, one may be forced to draw conclusions from evidence that is often circumstantial. We can analyze the statements made by those who participated in the events, recognizing that these public and private comments are often intended to promote a specific agenda. In the end, one can attempt to make a reasonable judgment based on a judicious assessment of the available evidence. 61"Islands Used as Vote Catchers," Latin America Weekly Report, 12 March, 1982, 5. See also "Stroke of Genius or Fatal Gamble," Latin America Weekly Report, 9 April 1982, 11; "Forces that Galtieri Unleashed," Latin America Weekly Review, 30 April 1982, 9; Edward Schumacher, "Argentina Sped Past the Point of No Return," The New York Times, 11 April 1982; "Argentina; Nationalists All," The Economist, 17 April 1982, 25; Jimmy Burns, "Fear of 'War Economy' Dashes Recovery Hopes," Financial Times Survey, 10 May 1982, 36; Carl J. Migdal, "For Argentina, Troubles Are Just Beginning," US News and World Report, 17 May 1982. 62 Conviccion editorial, 27 January 1982, quoted in Eddy and Linklater, The Falklands War, 28. 63Cardoso, Kirschbaum, and van der Kooy, Falklands, 21. 64Gavshon and Rice, The Sinking of the Belgrano, 58. 65Haig, Caveat, 263. 66See Gamba, The Falklands/Malvinas War, 132; Honeywell and Pearce, Falklands/Malvinas, 80; Romero, A History of Argentina, 244; Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands, 46; Wynia, Argentina, 12 67See Romero, A History of Argentina, 256; Cardoso, Kirschbaum, and van der Kooy, Falklands, 87; "Galtieri Speaks in La Pampa on Government Goals," La Nación, 13 February 1982. 68Cardoso, Kirschbaum, and van der Kooy, Falklands, 87–88; Gamba, The Falklands/Malvinas War, 75. 69Monica Peralta-Ramos, The Political-Economy of Argentina: Power and Class Since 1930 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1992), 87. 70World Bank, Argentina: Economic Memorandum, 1 (Washington, DC, 1985), 96, 99. 71In assessing a state's ability to mobilize national resources, the best available data is Jacek Kugler and Marina Arbetman's measure of relative extractive capacity. Kugler and Arbetman estimate the level of tax revenues each government could collect based on the country's total economic resources. They then identify states that are better or worse than expected at extracting revenues. If a government extracts revenues equal to the expected amount based on the size of its economy, a state receives a score of 1.0. Scores less than 1.0 indicate that the government did worse than expected relative to the size of its national economy. Kugler and Arbetman give Argentina an extractive capacity score of 0.56 in 1981 and 0.52 in 1982. See Kugler and Arbetman, "Relative Political Capacity." See also Organski and Kugler, The War Ledger. 72Smith, Authoritarianism, 245. 73Ibid., 246. 74World Bank, Argentina, xxvii. 75Ibid., 19. 76Romero, A History of Argentina, 256. 77"Galtieri Speaks," 1, 12. 78Pion-Berlin, "The Fall of Military Rule in Argentina," 66. 79Wynia, Argentina, 12. 80Cardoso, Kirschbaum, and van der Kooy, Falklands, 87. This is confirmed by the fact that shortly after the government faced a popular revolt in response to Argentina's defeat in the Falklands, it set a date for elections. Of course, officials also clung to the hope that, if they oversaw Argentina's democratization, they might be able to participate as elected leaders. 81Identifying additional necessary conditions is a requisite task if the combination of unrest and extractive capacity is a necessary but not sufficient condition of the junta's decision to reclaim the Falkland Islands. Though this may be an obvious point to some, it is one worth making. Any causal explanation is incomplete until sufficient antecedent conditions (a single one or a complete set of them) are stated. To assert that a condition or set of conditions is necessary to cause an event may be to provide something less than a full explanation, unless one has identified enough necessary conditions to have caused what one is attempting to explain. Of course, a complete explanation of an event may require only a single cause if it is both necessary and sufficient. Therefore, I attempt to identify the conditions that were jointly sufficient to cause Argentina's invasion of the Falklands. 82Thornton, The Falklands Sting, 147. See also Romero, A History of Argentina, 243; Freedman, "Reconsiderations," 199; Gibran, The Falklands War, 71; Freedman and Gamba-Stonehouse, Signals of War, 10; G. A. Makin, "Argentine Approaches to the Falklands/Malvinas: Was the Resort to Violence Foreseeable?" International Affairs 59 (Summer 1982): 391–428. 83Wynia, Argentina, 8. Although the war proved to be a miscalculation with disastrous consequences, it is not difficult to see why Argentina's leaders might have doubted Britain's resolve. In the months prior to the decision to invade, Britain announced the withdrawal of HMS Endurance from the South Atlantic, which was its only semi-permanent naval presence in the region, and the closure of the British Antarctic Survey base in South Georgia, which was its only presence on South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. Together, these events suggested that if "ever a nation was tired of colonial responsibility, this was it." Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands, 47. See also John Nott, Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: Recollections of an Errant Politician (London: Politico's Publishing, 2002), 254–56. 84See Thornton, The Falklands Sting, 131; Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands, 47. 85Eventually this decision was reversed, though only after most of the troops had been sent back to Argentina. 86Admittedly, the junta did not intend to reclaim the islands in April. The junta was compelled to move up its plan for invasion by several months after Argentine workers landed on South Georgia, refused to request formal authorization for their presence, and hoisted an Argentine flag. Therefore, one could argue that the military might have been better prepared for an invasion had it taken place in July or October as originally anticipated. That said, the abbreviated timetable cannot account for the absence of a plan to defend the islands against a British reprisal. 87This is not to suggest that Britain was guaranteed a military victory. Indeed, Argentina was able to inflict significant damage on Britain's task force. And, if Argentina had been able to acquire additional Exocet missiles, the damage would have been even greater. See Gavshon and Rice, The Sinking of the Belgrano, chap. 2; Thornton, The Falklands Sting, 112; "Argentina Sticks to Its Guns but Pins Hopes on Diplomacy," Latin America Weekly Report, 23 April 1982. 88See Gavshon and Rice, The Sinking of the Belgrano, 30–31; Freedman and Gamba-Stonehouse, Signals of War, 142; Thornton, The Falklands Sting, 106; Nora Kinzer Stewart, South Atlantic Conflict of 1982: A Case Study of Military Cohesion (Alexandria: U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 1988), 59–60. 89Gavshon and Rice, The Sinking of the Belgrano, 31. 90Dov Zakheim, "The South Atlantic Conflict: Strategic, Military, and Technological Lessons," in The Falklands War: Lessons for Strategy, Diplomacy, and International Law, ed. Alberto R. Coll and Anthony C. Arend (Boston: George Allen & Unwin, 1985), 159–88. 91Anonymous source, quoted in Cardoso, Kirschbaum, and van der Kooy, Falklands, 97. 92Franks, Falkland Islands Review, 76–77. 93The policy reversal began during the Carter administration in response to the revelation that Argentina had been developing a nuclear weapons program. 94See Thornton, The Falklands Sting, 53–54, 256. 95Galtieri, who was then commander of the army and a member of the military government, also made a very favorable impression on many officials in the Reagan administration. After one visit, he was described as "Argentina's General Patton" and said to possess a "majestic personality." See Thornton, The Falklands Sting, 70; Cardoso, Kirschbaum, van der Kooy, Falklands, 15. 96David Lewis Feldman, "The United States Role in the Malvinas Crisis, 1982: Misguidance and Misperception in Argentina's Decision to Go to War," Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 27 (Summer 1985): 6. The belief that the United States would remain strictly neutral or even side with Argentina instead of Britain, its historic ally, was a product of wishful thinking and miscommunication. A conversation between Costa Mendez and Thomas Enders, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Latin American affairs, is thought to have been particularly influential in shaping the junta's perception of the likely U.S. stance on a conflict between Argentina and the United Kingdom. After politely listening to a lengthy presentation on the legality of Argentina's Falkland Islands claims, Enders told Costa Mendez that U.S. policy toward the dispute was "hands off." Enders later insisted that he had not given Argentina a green light to invade. "What I said to him was that we were 'hands off' on the basic dispute, but that we hoped they would get on with the discussions with the British." Michael Charlton, The Little Platoon (London: Blackwell, 1989), 165 (emphasis in the original). See also Wynia, Argentina, 14; Smith, Authoritarianism, 256; Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands, 70; Cardoso, Kirschbaum, van der Kooy, Falklands, 120; Honeywell and Pearce, Falklands/ Malvinas, 81–82; Lebow, "Miscalculation in the South Atlantic, 112, 251; and Haig, Caveat, 267. 97J. Iglesias Rouco, "The Foreign Offensive," La Prensa, 24 January 1982. 98Leopoldo Galtieri, quoted in Lebow, "Miscalculation in the South Atlantic," 113. 99In the end, American assistance, although limited, helped Britain win the war. See Lawrence Freedman, Britain and the Falklands War (London: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 72. 100See Freedman, Britain and the Falklands War, chap. 5. 101Gavshon and Rice, The Sinking of the Belgrano, 18. 102Anonymous source, quoted in Gavshon and Rice, The Sinking of the Belgrano, 31. 103Gavshon and Rice, The Sinking of the Belgrano, 46; Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands, 75; Eddy and Linklater, The Falklands War, 135; Romero, A History of Argentina, 243; Moro, The History of the South Atlantic Conflict, 30; Wynia, Argentina, 16; Cardoso, Kirschbaum, and van der Kooy, Falklands, 102; Haig, Caveat, 276–77. 104"Radical Leaders Want Political System Changed," Noticias Argentinas, 20 November 1981. 105These include the Crimean War (1853), the Franco-Prussian War (1870), the Russo-Japanese War (1904), World War I (1914), and the Sino-Japanese War (1931). For a discussion of the domestic causes of these and other wars, see Blainey, The Causes of War; Levy, "The Diversionary Theory of War"; Quincy Wright, A Study of War (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1963); Arno Mayer, "Internal Crises and War since 1870," in Revolutionary Situations in Europe, ed. C. Bertrand (Quebec: Interuniversity Centre for European Studies, 1971).