If Britain has no right to the Falklands, the US has no right to half its territory

Brick by brick, the Western alliance is being dismantled. Alliances work when countries stand by their friends, even when their own interests are not engaged. Britain, Canada, and Denmark joined the U.S. operation in Afghanistan, not because they had been attacked, but because they saw 9/11 as an assault on the free world, and rushed to help their ally.Canada has been rewarded with a tariff war, Denmark with the threatened annexation of its territory. And the United Kingdom? When President Donald Trump started musing about not supporting Britain’s sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, it released a flood of pro-Argentina commentary from U.S. conservatives.Before engaging with that commentary, it is worth making two points. First, it represents a huge turnaround. In 1982, when Argentina’s military dictatorship launched an unprovoked invasion, the Reagan administration was unequivocally pro-Britain. A resolution calling for Argentine withdrawal passed the Senate with 99 votes in support, only the contrarian Jesse Helms abstaining for abstruse procedural reasons. As the proposer of that motion, a young senator called Joe Biden, put it, “My resolution which clearly calls for us to state whose side we’re on, which is the British side.” Second, I cannot sufficiently stress how much this issue matters to Britain. It is not in our character to wave flags and plaster maps of the islands on every bus route, as Argentines do. But do not confuse lack of display for lack of resolve (Galtieri’s error in 1982). A switch in the U.S. position would destroy the Atlantic alliance.SORRY, BRITAIN. THE FALKLAND ISLANDERS ARE JUST 190-YEAR-OLD SQUATTERSSo, what exactly is the Argentine claim that some commentators have now discovered with all the excitement of a Labrador finding a ball under the sofa? After all, the first recorded landing in the islands was by an English captain in 1690, the territory has been continuously inhabited by British subjects since 1833, and, in a referendum in 2013, the islanders voted by 99.8% on a 92% turnout to remain British.The Argentine case was advanced in these pages last week by Walter E. Block and Ege Fakkusoglu (“Sorry, Britain, the Falkland Islanders are just 190-year-old squatters”). Essentially, they argue that Britain seized the territory by force in 1833, removing the small settlement of fishermen, whalers, and Afro-Argentine slaves. “A seized parcel does not become res nullius again.”In fact, Britain had never accepted the Spanish claim to the island, from which the Argentine claim derives. The territory had been disputed from the start, when near-simultaneous British and French settlements were established in ignorance of each other in the 1760s. Spain later bought out the French claim, but Britain never relinquished its own. Both countries eventually withdrew from the archipelago, each leaving behind a plaque maintaining its rights. When Argentina sent a military garrison and, in 1829, appointed a governor, both the U.S. and Britain took it as an act of aggression. The USS Lexington broke up the colony in 1831, and in 1833, HMS Clio removed the garrison without a shot being fired, since when British possession has been continuous.In a sense, though, all of this is secondary. If, as Block and Fakkusoglu claim, 190 years of settlement does not establish a right of self-determination, then almost every map in the world is invalid. The U.S., for example, would have no claim to Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, or Colorado. Coincidentally, the Indian Removal Act (1830) was almost exactly contemporaneous with the British settlement of the Falklands.I get that people admire President Javier Milei. I am a fan myself, having gotten to know him slightly before his presidential bid. Back then, he was taking the reasonable line that, if Argentina wanted the islands, it would need to win over their inhabitants by, for example, having a more successful economy. Milei knows perfectly well that the Malvinas issue has been the go-to for every government seeking to distract voters from economic failure, going right back to Juan Peron in the 1940s, before which hardly anyone cared about it.WHERE DO YOU WANT TO FIND YOUR IMMIGRANTS?The oddest thing is to see some Israelis now lining up behind the Argentine claim. Not likable or impressive Israelis. Rather, the extremists who do as much damage to the cause of the Jewish state as any Arab militia: Itamar Ben-Gvir, Yair Netanyahu, and the numbskull Floridian congressman Randy Fine. Is this really where defenders of Israel want to go? Arguing that self-determination counts for nothing because “a seized parcel does not become res nullius again?”No doubt some of them think they are having a bit of fun, trolling Britain’s Labour government. But these things have consequences. And, with the possible exception of China, those consequences are bad for everyone.