Since they could be deployed in artillery shells, or Lance Missiles I would say yes.
Carter and the Falklands War
- Thread starter NHBL
- Start date
In your TL can you explain how such an unrealistic plan as Eagle Claw could've possible worked? They didn't even know what building the hostages were being held in. The U.S. embassy was a large compound in the middle of a huge city and was occupied by hundreds of radical students. Armed units were in the area who would respond to the attack. How do you secure the compound without causing a bloodbath? If they got pinned down at the embassy, they planned to call in airstrikes. How many people would be killed in the middle of Tehran by that?
After securing the compound, and searching it for hostages, you have to load everyone into crowded helicopters, fly to a captured Tehran airport, and then out of the country. Before that could the helicopters reach Desert 2, and hold up there undetected for 24 hrs.', then fly into the embassy in the dark without everyone in Tehran knowing what was going on? Could you load the helicopters under fire? At that point the Iranians would be in hot pursuit and shooting at anything moving or flying. The whole area would be a mess, without any kind of perimeter. Could you capture a Tehran airport, and fly a C-130 in and out with any hope of success?
Eagle Claw was one of the worst plans ever drawn up. Its assumptions were based on magical thinking that so many improbable elements would all come together for a successful result. The best result was the abort order being given; the tragedy was the ground collision. If the operation had gone through the most likely outcome would be most of the hostages being killed, and most of the troops sent into the embassy being killed, or captured, and many hundreds of Iranian civilians dead. Giving the operation a good ahead was one of the dumbest things Carter ever did, in an administration filled with idiocy.
Did either of you bother to look up what Carter's actual response was to the Falklands War?
Indeed, far from offering "full support to the UK" as you mention, Reagan three times asked Thatcher to consider an Anglo-Argentine powersharing agreement with a joint American-Brazilian peacekeeping force and mostly certainly refrained from criticizing Argentina's human rights record. This isn't even mentioning the presence of Alexander Haig and Jeane Kirkpatrick, who both requested Reagan support's for the Argentine junta in the dispute (with Haig even planning to give the Argentine junta classified British documents). While I’m sure you’ll question Carter’s comments about a peace without either side losing face, Reagan (just two days after Carter’s statement) advocated for an ''early solution in which there would be neither victors nor defeated'' and in which ''the honorable and just requirements of both sides would be met” in a meeting with Brazil’s President Figueuiredo.
Carter's argument that Argentina was the aggressor pretty clearly shows that he wouldn't take Argentina's anti-colonial arguments seriously. As for your position that the Argentines never thought Reagan would support them, that is simply not supported by the actions taken by their regime. I would recommend reading The United States Role in the Malvinas Crisis, 1982: Misguidance and Misperception in Argentina's Decision to Go to War which goes into depth on Argentina's perceptions of American support.
Not only did contacts between Argentine and American officials restart within two weeks of Carter's defeat, but General Galtieri was also clearly influenced by the flattery he received from Reagan and other officials upon his visit to Washington. Galtieri's military attache subsequently "drew up plans to: (1) invite Reagan Administration officials to visit Buenos Aires; (2) hire a Washington public relations firm to assist in lobbying efforts, (3) recall Argentina's ambassadors to Cuba and Nicaragua... - and (4) draw up measures 'to inhibit the action of Cuba and El Salvador in case our collaboration in suggested by the U.S.'" Galtieri's regime subsequently sent "dozens of Argentine military advisors to Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala", which was "precisely calculated to enhance the prospects of U.S. support" and released 80 political prisoners. The Argentines were even confident that the American news media would support the invasion! Even the notion that the British wouldn't fight back was influenced by information given by the National Security Council.
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And after Sec of State Haig came back from Buenos Aries, he told Reagan "These guys are a bunch of thugs." From that point the Americans were all in for the British. They even discussed loaning an aircraft carrier to the RN. Stating that Argentina was the aggressor, and he expected the British would try to retake the Islands doesn't tell us what he would've done. He was talking about other powers staying out of the conflict. The U.S. didn't stay out of it, they were all in short of war.
The whole issue of Central America has nothing to do with the Falklands. The Junta in Buenos Aries got though the Carter years without worrying that Jimmy Carter was going to take them out. In another Carter term they'd still do what they thought they needed to do. The miscalculation they made was in what the British would do, not what the Americans would do. If they thought the British would fight, they ether would have waited, or not done it at all.
A rather succinct summary.
But I think that Carter's failures turned on another factor. I remember his Health Education and Welfare (HEW) Secretary Joseph Califano explaining his resignation in 1979. Califano stated that President Carter was simply unable to delegate any final decision-making authority to any of his Cabinet members, and HEW was at the bottom of the priority list. After 30 months of Limbo, Califano got fed up and quit.
It was this personality trait that got President Carter labeled as weak. Except for the few major decisions Carter had time for, his Administration ran on auto-pilot. No wonder Senator Edward Kennedy challenged him for renomination in 1980. HEW was at the top of Kennedy's priority list.
This perception was locked in place long before the Iran Hostage Crisis; or most of the other factors listed above; and this is why I believe it to be incredibly tough to write a plausible alternative Carter Administration History.
Very good example. Carter wasted time by doing such useless things as studying the air force budget. He was a micro manager. His involvement in so many aspects of his administration was an impediment to getting anything done. His personal involvement in the hostage rescue plan probable doomed any chance of success. That he allowed himself to be so absorbed in the day-to-day events of the hostage crisis helped doom his presidency. Carter never understood that the most valuable commodity a president has is his time. A president lays out policy objectives, and rallies political support for them. Carter could never understand that. He thought his job was managing the Government.
After he laid out his national energy plan Tip O'Neill tried to tell him he needed to twist arms in Congress to get the plan passed. Carter told him "No the bill had to pass on its merits." Nothing passes in Congress on its merits, so most of the plan was never adapted. Some of his thinking was too anti-capitalist. You can't end an oil shortage with a wind fall profits tax. Oil is a capital-intensive industry, if you take most of the profits out of it why make big investments? The best epitaph for Jimmy Carter as president is he was a good man who meant well but he just didn't get it.
I suppose I will never know how much was Carter's natural personality, and how much was the Rickover "You are the single point of failure if you are not expert on everything and every action" Indoctrination.
This.. RIckover lessons never left Carter I believe. Carter based on IQ might have been of ten smartest presidents in our history but that I think was part of his weakness
I never considered the Rickover issue. That is an interesting point. I know that Rickover is viewed radically differently depending on who is talking. I know more then a few vets that were on Subs, boomers and attack boats. I even know an ex Royal Navy vet that served on Subs.
I would guess that Rickover was more into the engineering side of things then tactics and i would presume men he had a hand in probably tend that way. So the devil is in the details approach would be logical to believe of President Carter and would explain much.
I know my RN acquaintance said something to the effect that the US navy Sub captains were some of the best technical experts and new the hardware of their boats better than any other nations navy captains new their hardware. But the implication was that the RN had engineers for that. Is this true? I cant say. But i would not be surprised if it is true.
I would guess that Rickover was more into the engineering side of things then tactics and i would presume men he had a hand in probably tend that way. So the devil is in the details approach would be logical to believe of President Carter and would explain much.
I know my RN acquaintance said something to the effect that the US navy Sub captains were some of the best technical experts and new the hardware of their boats better than any other nations navy captains new their hardware. But the implication was that the RN had engineers for that. Is this true? I cant say. But i would not be surprised if it is true.
Yeah that would be true especially when Rickover was around and he was around for a long time. I'm born and raised in Groton and also a navy brat. So know many Submariners and also many who have built the boats. there was no gray with Rickover its ether you loved him or hated him from what I was told.
Why Soviets would want support right-wing antisocialist military dictatorship? And they were pretty much stuck in Afghanistan.
David Flin
Gone Fishin'
Support the country currently engaged in killing off anyone suspected of having Communist sympathies, and that was supported by the USA.
That would be a novel, imaginative, and unexpected strategic decision.
Watch and take notes, certainly. Hope for a large butcher's bill, absolutely. But support one side or the other?
Well Nasser did the same to local commies but Moscow supported him to the hilt.
Best help from Moscow maybe get more Exocets via Libya , or Indians to teach the Argentinans how to counter sea harrier. Maybe if more time is available neutral chartered ship can deliver some NK or Vietnamese advisors to strengthen the local defenses on the islands.
Trade, as in OTL. The USSR and the Argentine dictatorship had good relationship and the Argentine communist party wasn't persecuted by (most of the) Junta, as it was an extension of the USSR foreign service.
That said, on such short notice, Soviet help would be limited to intelligence information, as the weapons systems aren't compatible. You can't, for instance, fit a Soviet antiship missile in a French built Super Etandard.
EDIT: If you understand Spanish, you can see a "journalist" embarrassing himself just last night on Argentine public TV, arguing about the role of the local communist party during the last dictatorship... with the prosecutor of the trials against the Junta
In short, the journalist was trying to make the argument that right wing economic policies (whatever those may be) require violence, while the man who got Videla behind bars (the first time) claimed they are two different things and used the communist party as an example while the journalist brain short-circuited.
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