LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Falklands War: Margaret Thatcher
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A key player in Great Britain's success in The Falklands War was Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Her stance against Argentine opposition and support of the military brought British victory in the war, and brought Thatcher public support in form of another term of office. Prior to war, Thatcher's public support was low, due mostly to the failing economy. It took a great deal of persuasion to make the government and public support Thatcher's plan to fund a battle for the Falklands in an declining economy. Though the public did not support the government's spending prior to wartime, they did support sending British troops to the territory. Anthony Barnett stated, "Enthusiasm for the fighting was not as strong as the identification for the troops" (87).
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The Falklands War was about Britain’s place in the global order. Thatcher and her supporters wanted to send a clear message that the British state was ready, willing and able to defend its property and British companies abroad.
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This book traces the interaction of war and diplomacy and analyses why the Falklands conflict of 1982 engaged the British and Argentine people in a deeply personal way. It ... examines the interpretation of the war in Britain, revealing how the war - a successful one - was seen by its critics as an example of 'Thatcher's Britain'. This 'small war' exemplified what one historian calls 'the myriad faces of war' and had - and has - resonances larger than its size.
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Ultimately, the successful conclusion of the war gave a noticeable fillip to British patriotic feeling, with the mobilisation of national identity encapsulated in the concept of "Falklands Factor." Since the failure of the 1956 Suez campaign, the end of Empire and the economic decline of the 1970s which culminated in the Winter of Discontent, Britain had been beset by uncertainty and anxiety about its international role, status and capability. With the war successfully concluded, Thatcher was returned to power with an increased Parliamentary majority and felt empowered to press ahead with the painful economic readjustments of Thatcherism. A second major effect was a reaffirmation of the special relationship between the US and UK to arguably its closest level ever. Both Reagan and Weinberger (his Secretary of Defence) received honorary knighthoods for their help in the campaign, but the more obvious result was the common alignment of Britain and the USA in a more confrontational foreign policy against the Soviet bloc, sometimes known as the Second Cold War.
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The politics of Restoration, in this case the Thatcher era, are what shadowed Bond's underlying message about The Falklands War. Though this play does not directly discuss the Falklands War, the shaping of the text brought the message of protest out into the open. Bond wrote, "When a society is unjust there is no freedom: everyone is in a ghetto of poverty, fear, anger, insolence, sentimentality - a ghetto of danger. In this ghetto it is difficult to understand but easy to feel. And there comes a lethal cocktail of misunderstanding and emotion - and it is this that leads to violence, to robbery and even to murder" (Hidden 74). Restoration contained a bit of all of these elements suggesting the war was unnecessary.
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Margaret Thatcher’s government was in its first term of office when the war broke out, and her rule was by no means firmly established. The successful outcome of the war undoubtedly played a major role in getting her re-elected for a second term of office. And finally, the Falklands War showed the Soviet Union that the West was no toothless tiger with an aversion to casualties, not when national interest and the rule of international law was at stake. Undoubtedly this had an effect on Soviet thinking. If a leading Western nation would fight over something like the Falklands, then war in Europe would be no pushover. With the solution of armed conflict closed to the Soviet Union, it had to turn inwards to find an answer to its economic and political woes.
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Margaret Thatcher