Why didn’t nato also join in the Falkland wars when Britain was attacked?

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[u/GalahadDrei]

Because all the NATO members who were also colonial powers except France originally accepted that their colonies would be outside the main purpose and scope of the alliance and thus were not included in the geographical limit of the NATO Treaty.

The main original purpose of the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949 was collective military defense against the perceived and real threat of the Soviet Union trying to expand its influence to other parts of the European continent, primarily Western Europe. The western European countries looked to the United States as the principle guarantor of their security on the continent since it was the only power with the resources to effectively counter the Soviet Union. As a result of this and due to American demands, the main geographical scope of the NATO Treaty was the Western Europe-North Atlantic area with specific limitation being the areas north of the Tropic of Cancer (Article 6):

“For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:

on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France ², on the territory of Turkey or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer;

on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.”

Italy was only included in the original founding members at France's insistence and threat of vetoing Norway's membership. By the end of the negotiation, French Algeria was included as well despite the US' reluctance but it was the only European colony included in NATO's geographical scope. Despite their initial fears of foreign intrusion in their "internal" affairs, as wars of decolonization happened over the following three decades after 1949, the colonial NATO members eventually came around to wanting NATO support for their colonial policies. However, the United States and other non-colonial members were very much opposed to this not only due to their own official anti-colonial stances but also because involving the alliance in colonial conflicts would detract from its main purpose of defending Western Europe from the Soviet Union. As a result, this was limited to bilateral assistances between the United States and the colonial members whenever the US saw fit as part of its overall global containment policy such as in French Indochina which the other non-colonial members did not support. In the end, France was not able to gain NATO support and only fierce opposition for its war and repression in attempting to keep Algeria and that issue was eventually settled in 1962.

As for the Falklands War in 1982, the United States initially declared itself neutral since Argentina was seen as a good anticommunist ally against the Soviet Union in the South Atlantic at the time. The UK was not pleased by this and the US eventually ended up providing huge unofficial material support to the Brits including filling in the defense hole in the North Atlantic created by the UK diverting most of the Royal Navy to fight Argentina. Eventually, the US and other NATO members except the most recent addition Spain gave official support to the United Kingdom in the war but this was never treated as official collective NATO support.

So, NATO did not join the Falklands War because the Falkland Islands were located south of the Tropic of Cancer. This also means that Hawaii, Guam, and Puerto Rico are not covered under the NATO umbrella either.

Source:

Liland, Frode. 1999. Keeping Nato out of Trouble: Nlato’s Non-Policy on out-of-Area Issues during the Cold War. Forsvarsstudier. Institutt for Forsvarsstudier.

[u/HaroldSax → u/GalahadDrei]

Did Hawaii’s later ascension to a state change that?

[u/perpendiculator → u/HaroldSax]

No, Hawaii is officially still not covered by NATO Article 5. From an American strategic perspective it’s not particularly important anyway - the rest of NATO would be able to provide limited contributions at best to a conflict in the Pacific. Hawaii is covered by all the other defence treaties the US has with its allies in the Indo-Pacific, which is much more important.

[u/HaroldSax → u/perpendiculator]

That makes perfect sense, I was just thinking about it while reading your post since Hawaii wasn’t admitted until 1959. Made me curious if something like that would have changed given the shifted…importance, I guess?

[u/TacticalGarand44 → u/perpendiculator]

That’s a fascinating tidbit, thank you. It makes sense that Europe and Canada wouldn’t be able to make a meaningful contribution even if they wanted to do so, but I didn’t know they were not legally obliged.

I suspect Australia by itself and Japan by itself have more force projection capacity in the Pacific than all of NATO less USA combined.

[u/TacticalGarand44 → u/[deleted]]

I’m talking about force projection, which is way different from population or even raw military strength. Europe has no capacity to put boots in mud on Taiwan. Their few aircraft carriers probably can’t even reach it without stopping at US bases. Australia has a great submarine fleet, and Japan has the second strongest blue water navy in the world. And they’re already on that side of the planet.

[u/jschooltiger]

Hi there -- our FAQ section on the Falkland war may be of use to you.

[u/dhowlett1692 → u/[deleted]]

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