Target of Opportunity

Too LITTLE attention, I think, has been paid to the Soviet dimension in the Falklands crisis, There is a paradox at the heart of the Argentine junta’s decision to invade the islands, which they call Las Malvinas (a corruption of the French Malouines, named after St. Malo, from which the explorer Bougainville set out in 1764 when he briefly colonized the islands thereby establishing a putative French claim should the issue of sovereignty remain unresolved by the current crisis). The paradox is that the junta’s policy plays into Soviet hands and contradicts the essential aims of the military regime since it deposed Isabelita Perón in 1976.

A double paradox. The aim and justification of the well-publicized coup of 1976 was to defeat what remains the worst outbreak of terrorism in contemporary history; and it is too often overlooked or ignored that at long range the Soviets played an important role on the side of the terrorists.

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Brian Crozier

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Too LITTLE attention, I think, has been paid to the Soviet dimension in the Falklands crisis, There is a paradox at the heart of the Argentine junta’s decision to invade the islands, which they call Las Malvinas (a corruption of the French Malouines, named after St. Malo, from which the explorer Bougainville set out in 1764 when he briefly colonized the islands thereby establishing a putative French claim should the issue of sovereignty remain unresolved by the current crisis). The paradox is that the junta’s policy plays into Soviet hands and contradicts the essential aims of the military regime since it deposed Isabelita Perón in 1976.

A double paradox. The aim and justification of the well-publicized coup of 1976 was to defeat what remains the worst outbreak of terrorism in contemporary history; and it is too often overlooked or ignored that at long range the Soviets played an important role on the side of the terrorists.