Non-Cold War Conflicts

This was a super Unit and each of the six areas of conflict could have been taken as a unit in its own right. As this was a specialist unit for me I led discussions on two of the conflicts, namely the Iran-Iraq War and also the Falklands Conflict. I also looked into the Indo-Pakistan series of wars.

Iran-Iraq. Saddam’s first major conflict which I was particularly interested as the Iran-Iraq War as this took place in an area of the World that I have served in twice. This particular conflict involved a series of tactics and campaigns that had not been seen before or had not been seen for a considerable period. The use of human waves and suicide bombers by the Iranians (although seen in Vietnam) was of considerable interest, especially the popular high esteem that they were seen (and this continues to this day within the realms of radical Islam and is not limited to one country). Also the campaign of firing rockets into population centres, this terrorising the civilian population had had little success in WW2, there is no reason to suppose that it would be successful in this conflict. The attacks each others oil installations was also significant and as was seen caused a significant raise in the price of oil. The ‘tanker war’ is another element that is unique. The shooting down of an Iranian passenger jet, after a US Navy ship mistook it for an Iranian fighter, could have been more significant than it was, there has never been any love lost between the Revolutionary Iran and the USA, and this incident was another chapter. The use of chemical weapons by Saddam would, I believe add credibility to later ‘intelligence’ that he had retained WMD and would lead to his downfall in 2003. I believe that it is right to link Iran-Iraq to invasion of Iraq in 2003 and also with Iran’s interests in the political landscape of the emerging Iraq under occupation.

Falklands Conflict. In contrast, the Falklands conflict was much the most simple conflict and clearly a much shorter one that most of the others in this Unit. The political background to the conflict is clearly a long running saga between Argentina and Britain over sovereignty of a remote (to Britain) and strategically unimportant group of sparsely populated islands, and even after victory in 1982, it is still not resolved. To a certain extent it could be argued that with the UK having to build a new military airport and garrison at Mount Pleasant that the conflict may be over, but the military aftermath continues to this day. I served in 5 Infantry Brigade in the Falklands conflict in 1982 and returned there in 1994 for a 7 month Garrison tour. The achievement of the UK Armed Forces was outstanding but it was truly a close run thing, with the loss of Sheffield, Ardent, Antelope and the Atlantic Conveyor prior to any land engagement it could have gone against Britain. Although it was out-of-style in the Cold War, this conflict should still be studied in relation to the modern era, as it has much to mark it out: the joint nature of operations, the logistic complexities, the use of General Wolfe’s ‘Quebec’ tactic of coming in the back door and the long ‘yomp’ or ‘tab’ across the island of East Falkland. Also the use of missiles against naval ships, the sinking of the Belgrano and in one engagement eliminating the Argentine navy from the conflict and also the use of conscripts against an all volunteer regular force, mark the Falkland conflict as still ripe for study.