Page 564 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

564 XXXIX Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

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potential trouble spots, was never put to the test. Within just two more years it was
decided to withdraw from east of Suez altogether. There were insufficient funds even for
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this token capability.
The 1982 Falklands Conflict provided another, rather belated vindication for the
JSSF concept. British success in Operation Corporate rested on the remnants of the
joint maritime expeditionary capability created in the 1960s, but was missing some key
assets, cut from the fleet by changing priorities which, once again, emphasised anti-
submarine operations in the North Atlantic. Most significant was the absence of a large
aircraft carrier such as HMS Ark Royal (decommissioned four years earlier) and either
of the two LPHs that had previously been maintained. Without the former the air defence
environment remained problematic while the absence of the latter condemned the British
commanders to adopt an approach to amphibious operations that was a generation behind
that employed in the 1960s. There is no question but that this increased British casualties
and gave Argentina opportunities for victory that they proved unable to exploit. The RAF
made its most significant contribution to success through the deployment of Harrier GR
3 ground attack aircraft on HMS Hermes and Invincible, where they operated in the
carrier role that their parent service had opposed so vociferously. This has not always
been the contribution that the RAF has subsequently chosen to emphasise. 28
The war in the South Atlantic was sufficiently out of kilter with existing policy to
be considered an aberration, it did not have a major impact on defence priorities. It was
not until the 1990s and end of the Cold War that expeditionary capabilities once again
gained prominence. In a manner not entirely dissimilar to thinking in the 1950s, the
reduced threat of war in Europe was believed to coincide with a increased probability
of instability overseas and once again British defence policy took on an expeditionary
hue. Amphibious and air mobile capabilities were enhanced and joint institutions and
initiatives proliferated. Most prominently, perhaps, Navy plans to construct two large
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aircraft carriers gained government approval in 1998.
Today, as British operations in Afghanistan draw to a close and the nation counts the
human and financial costs of the long wars there and in Iraq, there is clearly a value in
finding ways to support foreign policy without the deployment of large military forces
overseas. Certainly there appears to be little appetite for anything that might engender a
commitment abroad, as the recent debacle over British involvement in potential strikes

26 The 1966 Defence White Paper announced the decision abandon the new carrier and to purchase fifty F-111
strike and reconnaissance aircraft. Of these only twelve were to be stationed east of Suez. Darby, British
Defence Policy, pp.306-7.
27 For an analysis of the British decision to withdraw from ‘east of Suez’ see S. Dockrill, Britain’s Retreat from
East of Suez: The Choice Between Europe and the World?, (2002) and J. Pickering, Britain’s Withdrawal from
East of Suez. The Politics of Retrenchment, (1998).
28 The best recent source on the Operation Corporate is the official history, Lawrence Freedman, The Official
History of the Falklands Campaign, 2 vols. (London: Taylor and Francis, 2005). For an analysis of the
amphibious operations see Mike Clapp, Amphibious Assault Falklands. The Battle of San Carlos Water,
(London: Pen and Sword, 2006).
29 Ian Speller, ‘Delayed reaction: UK maritime expeditionary capabilities and the lessons of the Falklands
campaign’, in Defense and Security Analysis, vol. 18, no.4, Dec. 2002