Page 18 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo II

658 XXXIX Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

“Together is not enough:
Argentine Jointness during the Malvinas War 1982”

Alejandro AmENDolARA

Introduction
ike most militaries, the Argentine Armed Forces prepared military plans for those
L scenarios that they felt were the most compelling for their country. National-level
war planning, however, was not a joint activity before the war in 1982 -except in times
of internal crisis, and even then, joint cooperation tended to be accomplished by ad hoc
committees-. For routine planning, each service prepared its own plans, with the Argen-
tine Navy naturally focused on the South Atlantic, constantly updating theorical plans
for the repossesion of the Malvinas Islands.

In Beaumont’s words: “Trying to reduce jointness and opposition to it to ration-
al, measurable terms matches the dilemma of the biologist who must kill to dissect,
since the separate roots of this conflict rise from the common ground of intense human
emotions”. 1

1. Initial planning:
In January 1982, the Argentine Navy Chief of Naval Operations Vice Admiral José
Lombardo, was ordered to prepare a plan to take back the Malvinas without necessarily
defending them. Each service appointed a representative to work in a small and secret
working group. With diplomatic negotiations between Argentina and Britain scheduled
to resume in February 1982, the joint planning group believed it had a few months to
finalize planning should negotiations fail. A military operation, if it were to occur, was
likely to happen between July and October 1982.
However, events were to escalate during the second-half of March 1982, and took
the Working Group by surprise. This fact and its evolution promoted to speed up the
strategic planning, and the Joint General Staff was forced to suspend the elaboration of
the documents committed by the Military Committee (“COMIL”) on March 16, 1982, to
devote to combine and complete the documents made by the Working Group.
On March 23 the documents were completed in haste, being approved by the Military
Committee on the same day. The Campaign Plan implemented was expected to move
with the occupation of the islands exclusively, creating the Theatre of Operations Malvi-
nas (“TOM”), in charge of an Army officer, Brigadier-General Osvaldo García, and a
first Military Directive was issued containing general guidelines with guidance for the
effective defence of the islands if the British were to react, that is, the assumptions and
structure that will frame the future South Atlantic Theatre of Operations.

1 Beaumont, Roger A.; “Joint Operations – A Short Story”; Greenwood Press; Westport, CT, USA; 1993,
p.186.