ABSTRACT
The Falkland Islands War of 1982 generated heated debate over military, political, economic, and legal issues. Argentina historically has regarded the Antarctic region as strategically significant. Serious concern persists about the ostensible need to protect the Argentine mainland’s southern flank from attack and possible blockade. The South Atlantic Ocean and the Antarctic continent are seen not merely as distant, frigid, ice-covered wastelands; rather, they are perceived as embodying an all too near springboard from which hostile military activity could be launched against Argentina’s national security. Serious questions arise, however, as to whether such presence on a single relatively insignificant islet can constitute a degree of effective occupation sufficient to legitimize Argentina’s concomitant claims to the Malvinas/Falklands, South Georgia, the South Shetlands, the South Sandwich group, and several hundred-thousand square miles of land space on the Antarctic mainland.
