Operation Soberanía
[1][2] In 1971, Chile and Argentina agreed to binding arbitration by an international tribunal, under the auspices of the British Government, to settle the boundary dispute.
On 25 January 1978 Argentina rejected the decision and attempted to militarily coerce Chile into negotiating a division of the islands that would produce a boundary consistent with Argentine claims.
At the time of the crisis, the Argentine military was substantially larger than that of Chile; in addition, the Chilean regime was more politically isolated and had suffered deteriorating relations with its main suppliers of arms.
[13] There was considerable international condemnation of the Chilean regime's human rights record, with the United States expressing particular concern after Orlando Letelier's 1976 assassination in Washington D.C., though the U.S. helped install the Pinochet administration initially.
In December 1978, when the outbreak of war appeared unavoidable, the German shipbuilding and engineering works Blohm + Voss and the Argentine Junta agreed to the building of four destroyers.
United States President Ronald Reagan (1981–1989) would later improve relations to Argentina due to their military support for Nicaragua's Contras.
[40] For the postwar phase of the operation, the Argentine Navy prepared political instructions to be followed in the southern zone after the disputed islands were under Argentinian sovereignty.
[43] A defensive position was built up the narrowest part of Brunswick Peninsula to avoid or delay an Argentine capture of Punta Arenas.
[43] In contrast to the defensive war planned by the Chilean Army in Punta Arenas and Puerto Natales, the Chilean army had plans for an attack to invade the Argentine part of Tierra del Fuego, but control of the island of Tierra del Fuego was considered a secondary goal since its control was believed to depend on the outcome of the clash of the navies.
[citation needed] Rear Admiral Raúl López, Chief of the Chilean fleet, kept silent as to whether he would simply wait or initiate an attack on the enemy navy.
[44] Chilean biochemist Eugenio Berríos is reported to have worked on a plan to poison the water supply of Buenos Aires in the event of war.
Alejandro Luis Corbacho, in "Predicting the probability of war during brinkmanship crisis: The Beagle and the Malvinas conflicts" [3] considers the reasons for cancelling the operation (p. 45): The newspaper Clarín explained some years later that such caution was based, in part, on military concerns.
In this case, the resolution of the conflict would depend not on the combatants, but on the countries that supplied the weapons.Unlike the prelude to the 1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands, from the beginning of Operation Soberanía there were no critical misconceptions on Argentina's side about Chile's commitment to defend its territory: the entire Chilean Navy was in the disputed area, an unequivocal fact at Cape Horn.
[50] As stated by David R. Mares in "Violent Peace: Militarized Interstate Bargaining in Latin America":[51]: 142 These Chilean advantages do not imply that it could have won the war against Argentina, but that is not the relevant point.
