Argentina has little chance of taking the Falkland Islands by force, but defence cuts mean Britain's military would struggle to reclaim the territory if it did, the former head of the U.K. army has warned.
General Mike Jackson told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper that defences on the South Atlantic islands are much better than in 1982, when Argentine forces invaded. Argentina lost the subsequent war with Britain over the islands it calls the Malvinas.
But Jackson said that Britain's decision to scrap its Harrier jets, which are capable of launching from aircraft carriers, would make it "just about impossible" to recover the islands if Argentina managed to seize the main airfield.
Jackson said the official British position was "that it would not be possible for the Argentinians to gain a foothold on the islands, in particular to take Mount Pleasant airfield, which is key to the British defence plan."