Revisiting the Falklands Intelligence Failures
Aug 2007, Vol. 152, No. 4
By Richard Ned Lebow
Twenty-five years after the event, the Falklands War is presented as a hardfought victory won by doughty British forces and their plucky prime minister. The recent celebrations have tended to obscure the fact that the war may have been avoidable, and was undoubtedly made more costly and riskier by the intelligence failure that preceded it.
British officials were unresponsive to warnings that diplomacy had failed and invasion was imminent. The nature of the problem was different from that of Iraq; it was deterring an invasion, not carrying one out. The root cause of intelligence failure may have been the same: insensitivity to information that suggested the course of action to which leaders were committed was likely to lead to disaster.
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By Richard Ned Lebow
Twenty-five years after the event, the Falklands War is presented as a hardfought victory won by doughty British forces and their plucky prime minister. The recent celebrations have tended to obscure the fact that the war may have been avoidable, and was undoubtedly made more costly and riskier by the intelligence failure that preceded it.
British officials were unresponsive to warnings that diplomacy had failed and invasion was imminent. The nature of the problem was different from that of Iraq; it was deterring an invasion, not carrying one out. The root cause of intelligence failure may have been the same: insensitivity to information that suggested the course of action to which leaders were committed was likely to lead to disaster.
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