The Empire Strikes Back From The Air? British Airpower On The Road To Falklands

Abstract

This research seeks to fill a gap in the existing scholarly literature concerning overall preparedness of British airpower for the Falklands War. The British defense establishment and airpower-related services fell victim to preparing for war against the Warsaw Pact and were not well-prepared for the Falklands War. However, British combined forces still won the war by a large margin. This paper examines the UK’s strategic background, operational contingency planning, force structure, doctrine, training, and posture to assess the RAF and RNFAA in the 1970s and compare them with the actual operational contingency, the required airpower-related military forces, and the performance of the existing RAF and RNFAA forces in the Falklands War. Yet it concludes that the risk of unpreparedness for peripheral contingencies might be warranted because of the imperative of strategic prioritization. The implication of this research suggests that the US, as it faces similarly conflicting demands on its strategic assets, might also have to prioritize and make hard choices on its political commitments.