Fixed it for you.

I doubt the UK has any interest in fighting an expensive war which would cost British lives unless Argentina force them into it.

Argentina can’t afford new fighters on their current military budget.

Yes, this is the case, Argentina nor England are thinking seriously on another war, so this discussion in fact has no sense. In fact, only the British media and the falklanders are the only talking seriously about the possibility of a war, the first, I don’t know why, but the second, because they only want more military based on the islands and justify the big expense on their defense (in this case, the best way for Argentina to lead to a discussion about the islands is to increase the threat until turning the defense cost bigger than the revenues from the islands). But both countries know that the economical, cultural and politic consequences of a war will be big, not only for both countries but for all the western hemisphere. The cosequences of the first are still felt by both countries (as an example, the increase on costs for the defense of the islands, from 45 Royal Marines in 1982 to more than 1700 personnel, aircraft, ships, etc. today)

a rafale would be good too, yet, somehow, I don’t think argentina may be very interested in buys french aircraft if their goal is to equip themselves to go against UK… I don’t know why, some strange feeling… 😀

The Rafale is too expensive if we consider the only conflict hypothesis Argentina has is the Malvinas / Falklands one, and Argentina is not seeking a war with England by know. The only possibility is an escalate of the conflict by England.
The Flanker is a good option, but the FAA officials are not interested on Russian weapons, they are looking for F-16s or Mirage 2000, but until now, the government is not interested on spending money on fighters. Almost for sure the next government will spend money on new planes, but this will be by 2012 and fighters will come after other things are fixed, as for example, restore the spares stocks, put all the existing planes in service, modernize others and buy or build new weapons.
One of the main advantages of the Flanker is its range, because Argentina’s mainland is 5,000km long and 1,100 km wide.

Out of interest, on what basis are the claims made? Why should the UK recognise them unless they are substantiated?

Argentina only claims 200 miles of economic exclusive zone and 12 miles of territorial waters. The decree says that ships entering Argentine harbours or sailing on territorial waters must ask for permission to go to the islands. I don’t know who made this map, but this is not an official claim. It’s true that some private said we have to expand our claim to 300 miles, but this wasn’t seriously considered by the government by now.

Anyway, Argentine president said very clear that the only that were talking about war is England, as this is not the intention by Argentina. The Argentine government and military know that after more that 25 of lack of investment on the armed forces, it’s impossible to retake the islands again. After US and British pressure in the nineties, the landing shìp, mining vessels and carrier were scrapped without a replacement. The plan to modify Boeing 707 into tankers and the Mirage with refuelling probe was also cancelled. Also the replacement of the Mirages was cancelled and when the A-4AR were bought, the intention was to buy F-16 or F/A-18, but this was rejected by the US. The Argentine military doesn’t like Russian weapons, so to buy something like the Flanker is not considered by now.
At last, the Armed Forces are not considering a war with England. But, the today’s situation on the islands probably will led to an important increase on defense budget, so to have this possibility in the future, but not before 10 or 20 years.
I think that for both countries is better to reach an agreement than to keep fighting about the islands. Unfortunately, I think that most people on both countries are not prepared for this. The only people I see that want a final agreement are the veterans. The true is that this conflict made both countries to spend more money (not only on defense, also on direct and indirect commercial deals) than the revenues.
As for example, without the conflict, Argentina will not have the pressure to keep the armed forces small, could participate on international crisis (as did in the Gulf War of 1991) and will spend more money and the Argentine military prefer European weapons (they are considered better than the Russian ones and without the sales limitation of the US ones) and a lot of deals with England could be made, as was before the war (the Type 42 destroyers, Lynx helicopters, bombs, small weapons, Canberras, etc). For example the Navy still need a helicopter like the Lynx or something like an EH-101 to replace the Sea Kings, new ships to replace the Type 42 and many other things.
Also, from 1982 till now, many British companies lost competitions for contracts in the country only because they were British.
Until the war, Argentina was the main Briish partner in Latin America and now, will take decades to restore the former relation.

Err, so what? You can’t cherry-pick the worst developed countries to make Argentina look better. How about drawing a comparison with your peers like Chile and Brazil?

No, we’re calling your bluff. It’s called “put up or shut up” – you do your worst or you go away and stop causing us trouble. There was no trouble until Argentina started putting these ineffective and childish measures in place to try to stop us drilling.

Argentina also had the opportunity to join a deal years ago (or was it already a party to one). But it walked away because it wanted more than its fair share and/or political concessions that the Falkanders didn’t want to give. So if you want to share in the potential wealth of the islands you’ll have to be much more reasonable this time, if you’re given another chance.

I know Chile and Brazil very well, as I travel there many times every year and I have a lot of friends there. Despite the macroeconomics are better, the quality of life isbetter in Argentina. If not, why the Chilean low classes comer to Argentina for medical attention? and this is only an example.
I know that the Argentine politicians, especially the actual government, failed on the negotiations and drop an arrangement that was good. That’s because a policy of “all or nothing”. But this doesn’t means: 1) that Argentina is talking about war. 2) that Argentina started a conflict when Britain made an unilateral decision over a territory in dispute, something recognized by the United Nations.

You have to look at it this way, with Argentina in such dire economic circumstances (but also having democracy) there is no desire for another war. Even if Kirchner took leave of her senses, she’d have no support and any conflict would quickly fail.

This is all about posturing to deflect away from the trouble President Kirchner is facing. Even the Argentine government has admitted they can’t ratchet things up any further.

But as the others have said, Argentina’s airforce and navy are in such a poor state that even the modest forces we have in the region at the moment would be more than enough to keep them at bay.

First of all, Argentine economics are not that bad and after the 2008 world crisis, our economy is more solid than many developed countries (for example Spain and Greece are in a too much worse situation than us). Here the main problem now is political, because of the failure of the actual government to discuss problems with different sectors, especially the agriculture and cattle production, but we are having a fiscal and trade superavit for the last nine years and tourism is growing also in a very important way, with Buenos Aires and all the main touristic places around the country full of foreigners.
The main discussion in the country now is that we can grow still more and the government is failing on this. We are also reducing the foreign debts and this year the agriculture production will be a record one.
But despite of this, the actual government hate the military because they were on the other side during the guerrillas war in the seventies and they put a former participant on one of the guerrillas group as defense minister. They also reduced more the budget defense, which was reduced in the nineties due to US pressure. So by now, the defense budget has an insignificant participation in the total budget of the country.
The only conflict hypothesis the country has by now are the Malvinas /Falklands and the drug traffic from Paraguay and Bolivia. But the are no plans to attack the islands by now as the country don’t have the capacity to do it. Alsdo that’s not the idea if Britain decided to negotiate a solution to the problem (which is not the case).
According to the Air Force, less than one half of the planes are in service, despite both KC-130H are operational and were recently used to support Haiti. But the FAA and the COAN has less capacity than in 1982, still using the Mirage III, Dagger/Fingers, Super Etendards and the A-4AR is not too much than the A.4B/C. The only hope we can have is a total support from Hugo Chavez and his Su-30Mk2, but this will be a problem more than a solution, as the political consequences this could have.
At the end, the true is that only England is talking about war, to justify political measures, as being the islands and area in dispute, recognized by the UN, they cannot exploit their natural resources like oil and gas, without an arrangemente with Argentina. But Argentina never thought about war. Fortunately, the British decisions are leading to a big part of the Argentines to see that we have to increase our defense budget and modernize our armed forces. Thanks to the British decisions, it’s almost for sure that the next government in 2011 will see the Armed Forces on a different way and will spend too more money on them.

Santiago

Argentina had just send a third Hercules (again a KC-130H) to Haiti with more equipment.

Brazil also sent at least eight planes between Hercules and Boeing 707. Guatemala sent a Baslet BT-67, Nicaragua An-26, Dominican Republic their complete Air Force and most civil airplanes, Mexico sent CASA CN-235 of the Naval Aviation and other planes. Bolivia sent a DC-10 of the Bolivian Air Force.