camberiu
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That is a case where the Argentine military started believing on its own propaganda. The idea that there was a "threat across the Andes" is ridiculous at best. After the defeat at the Falklands, the Argentine military collapsed upon itself. The entire institution broke down and Argentina was at its most vulnerable state. Did Chilean troops take advantage of this opportunity to come rolling across the Andes back then? Nope. Because they never represented any threat. If anything, it had been Argentina who had been threatening Chile with an invasion for decades, not the other way around. But it seems that at some point during the process, the Argentine high command started believing on its own bullshit propaganda to justify the hostilities towards Chile and made some very poor strategic decisions based on that. They where blinded by their own lies.
But for the sake of argument, let's assume for a moment that the Chilean threat was real. In this case, it was obvious that Argentina lacked enough troops qualified and equipped to hold both the Andes and the Falklands. Therefore, instead of sending vast amounts of ill equipped and poorly trained troops to the islands to serve no other purpose as of being targets, the focus should have been entirely on using the air force and the navy to try to prevent the landing of the British Marines in the islands, with the understanding that if they landed, the war was pretty much over. Instead, the Argentine high command chose deliberately to send its most green and poorly equipped troops to a region that they were completely unfamiliar with and unprepared for, to face highly trained, well paid Royal Marines who were equipped with night vision goggles, electric heated jackets and laser guided shoulder launched missiles.
Military circles call this situation an "unattainable strategic position" and on on a military academy, they teach at some introductory course in military strategy that one should never send your troops into a situation of unattainable strategic position.
The reality is that the Argentine military in 1982 entered a war of choice over the Falklands, knowing that bulk of their forces had to stay in the Andes to prevent an invasion that never happened and that was never planned to happen, and instead opted to sent unqualified troops to the islands into an impossible situation that they had no hopes of winning.
It is no wonder that your military imploded upon itself after the war and the morale has never recovered after 30+ years. When commanding officers betray their own men like that, it is a symptom of an institution completely corrupted and rotten to the core, where even the most sacred bonds between commanding officers and their men don't mean jack shit. The Argentine military showed complete disregard towards the lives not only of the civilian population, but of its own men, who shared the same uniform as themselves. Such institutions can never win anything. The war was lost before it ever began.
