For news junkies, events in Ukraine have displaced a compulsion with Donald Trump. But both are momentous, with vast implications for truth, ethics, statecraft, international relations, hard and soft power, social polarisation, who stands where, the rules, the UN, how we feel about our own countries, and on an on.
The 50th anniversary of the Falklands war between Britain and Argentina, is due soon, and doubtless there will be much commentary. It has many parallels with the Ukraine conflict, but weirdly reversed and scrambled. There is a David and Goliath element; a vast armada is sent out by a political leader believing that quick, victorious wars are beloved of the common folk; there is partisan framing and reporting; there are flagrant breaches of the Geneva Conventions; there are colossal hypocrisies; they both run from a ‘foregone conclusion’ start, to an uncertain outcome as the underdogs fight back; around the world, nations line up to support one side or the other, usually in a predictable pattern; it’s compulsive: we’re all watching.
As it happens, I kept a diary during the Falklands war, because I wanted to record my own views and feelings at the time, before the outcome was known. The Diary was a bit erratic, but it was an honest handwritten account of what I thought. Ten years ago, on the 40th anniversary, I published the diary as a blog, along with a commentary for those who weren’t there. This can be found on http://harpersmuse.blogspot.com/2012_06_04_archive.html.
The parallels with Ukraine are enough to make me bring it all out again. The ‘fake news’ on both sides was particularly striking. Are we subject to wishful thinking about events in Ukraine? And what about the ordinary Russian people? What do they think? Here’s a small sample from the Diary, reported from Buenos Aires:
People believe that Hermes [British aircraft carrier] is sunk, Invincible [ditto] badly damaged, Woodward [British C-in-C] has committed suicide, 13 Harriers [British fighter jets] have been shot down, and that Prince Andrew has been taken prisoner.
None of these things were true. The reference to Prince Andrew is rather striking given subsequent events: at that time, he was a heroic helicopter pilot. There’s a lot more of this kind of political time-travel in the Diaries, and even the comments from 2012 have a curious historical feeling. They certainly didn’t anticipate the Ukraine crisis.
Putting out these diaries has drawn notice from an old colleague, Chas Ball, who was actually in the Falklands as a VSO worker before the conflict, and took part in a retrospective documentary that fills in many gaps. You can find it on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BFUqmbx_7w.
Of course we still don’t know what will happen in Ukraine, while the Falklands war had a clear outcome. But the very final entry in the diary brings the whole thing to a juddering halt. It is the suddenly received information that in the late sixties, the UK government forced 1500 inhabitants of a group of islands in the Indian Ocean into exile. There was compensation, theoretically about £30,000 per head, but no choice. They had to go. At this rate of compensation, the true ‘Kelpers’, as genuine residents of the Falkland Islands were known, could have been relocated (if they wished) for a total cost of £9 million, small change for the FCO, and infinitely less than the 2 billion the war actually cost, quite apart from the 900 lives lost.
What was the difference? The Pacific islanders were black, each worth, in retrospect, only 1/200th of a Kelper. Plus ça change. As for the overall purpose, the counter-invasion of the Falklands was undertaken to assert national sovereignty and protect the population from unchosen changes. Fair enough. In contrast, the expulsion of the pacific islanders had a much grittier purpose: to make room for a US air base.
The whole thing was a colossal monument to national vainglory, and she got away with it. Was a teenage Vladimir Vladimirovich taking notes?