As Iran continues to suck the oxygen out of every morning’s headline, an interesting turn of events has quietly unfolded on the back burner. Argentine President Javier Milei, a sincere and stalwart ally of the United States, has publicly reiterated his country’s claim to the Falkland Islands.
The islands currently fall under British jurisdiction, which has been in effect since the 1982 Falklands War. But the legal dispute over the islands was never settled, and Argentina never surrendered its claim to them.
Earlier this month, Milei delivered a speech reaffirming “our right to the full exercise of sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands, South Georgia, and the South Sandwich Islands and the surrounding maritime spaces.” He stated that the situation “must be resolved through mature and sincere dialogue between Argentina and the United Kingdom.” In a warning to oil companies looking to develop the oil fields in the vicinity of the Falklands, he said that Argentina “will respond with all the necessary diplomatic measures to protect its rights and defend its interests.”
This has been Argentina’s position since 1982 but had been largely assumed by the rest of the world to be a position in name only. So why now? Why did Milei choose this moment to publicly reassert this claim?
Simple. Milei smells blood in the water. Under Starmer, the United Kingdom is the weakest it’s ever been.
In terms of actual resolution, nothing is going to happen anytime soon. Such legal recourses take years, if not decades, to wind themselves through the Byzantine labyrinth of the United Nations and international courts. Milei hasn’t resurrected Argentina’s claim in the hopes that it’ll actually achieve anything on its own. He knows it won’t. This isn’t about legalities; this is about optics.
Milei is making a public display of political power and a public appeal to justice. If Starmer is not just willing, but eager, to hand over the Chagos Islands to the natives on the pretext of “indigenous peoples” and “stolen land” and all that nonsense, then why exclude the Falklands from the equation? And if Great Britain is both unwilling and unable to protect its Cyprus allies from Iranian drones, what makes the inhabitants of the Falklands any safer?
Europe is in terminal decline largely because of its arrogance and its cowardice, two vices which, unfortunately, reinforce each other. The European masks his cowardice with arrogance, and even that arrogance is ill-placed. The European brags not because of their architectural and artistic masterpieces, but because of their comically incompetent social services. The European boasts not of their former military and cultural conquests, but of their absolute refusal to engage in such actions today.
The arrogant, cowardly European ran on this reputation for nearly a century, but that façade is now crumbling before our eyes. Say what you will about Iran, China, and Russia. Their leaders are megalomaniacal sociopaths, but they aren’t crazy or “irrational” by any applicable standard. They understand the game, and they play the game with ruthless singularity. Presidents Trump and Milei understand the game as well, but they’re playing for the good guys to win. (On that note, you can also argue that Antifa and BLM also fully understand the rules of the game. It’s Thom Tillis and Rand Paul who don’t.)
The arrogant, cowardly European pretends as though the game is beneath him. And that’s why he sits on the bench. Neither side wants him on their team. A century ago, the European was the star quarterback. Today, he’s afraid of the ball.
Pride cometh before the fall. The arrogant, cowardly European will gladly descend to his grave, smug in his presumption that his polished, cultured elegance is self-evidently superior to troglodytic Americanism. If deliverance from such a fate required only that he admit he was wrong, he’ll never do it.
Which brings us back to the Falklands. Argentina is an established, Western-aligned power whose leader understands the game and has chosen the right side. Other Latin American countries are similarly following suit. And if Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, and Venezuela make better allies than do England, Spain, Germany, and France, then why are we wasting our time trying to make the latter see reason? It’s clear that the Europeans have seen America gradually lose interest in this one-way, abusive relationship, and yet have shown no sign whatsoever that they’re interested in reconciliation.
Will these nations one day take the inevitable pendulum swing back to the left? Assuredly. But Latin Americans, even leftist ones, have always been more aligned with us on the concepts of land rights, sovereignty, and nationalism than have the Europeans. They’ll remember who had their back over the Falklands.
Back in 1982, we had Britain’s back, despite international opposition. Britain seems to have forgotten this, or simply doesn’t care. That’s fine. If both Milei and Starmer keep their countries on their current trajectories, Argentina will continue to flourish, and Britain will continue its self-inflicted entropy into a squalid Islamic backwater.
We should continue to realign ourselves with allies who actually grasp what that word means. And we should support Argentina’s claim to the Falklands. Again, probably nothing will come of it, but it’s important for us to show our hemispheric neighbors that we value a tangible friendship with them.
Anyone can see which way the winds are blowing, and they aren’t into the flaccid sails of a now-nonexistent British navy.
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