The curious thing is that while the United Kingdom strengthens its occupation of the Malvinas, it cedes its true territory to the Muslim world. While London consolidates its military device, the Argentine reaction has been diminishing. The combination of a well-equipped garrison, modernized infrastructure, and diplomacy that reinforces the status of an “overseas territory” demonstrates that London is not only not retreating in its occupation but is consolidating it, while Argentina maintains its formal claim of sovereignty but lacks, for now, an active strategy to face this reality in the geopolitical and military sphere. Official British documents highlight the need for advanced bases, rapid expeditionary capability, and control of strategic maritime routes, among which the South Atlantic and access to Antarctica occupy a central place.
Buenos Aires, November 15, 2025 – Total News Agency-TNA– The recent rotation of British troops in the Malvinas Islands, with the arrival of B Company of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment, once again exhibited how the United Kingdom behaves in fact as the master of the occupied Malvinas Islands, the surrounding sea, and the corridors to Antarctica and the Pacific, in a context of political silence from the Argentine government before the growing militarization of the South Atlantic. The new infantry unit took over from I Company of the 2nd Battalion The Rifles as the Roulement Infantry Company of the British Forces South Atlantic Islands (BFSAI), based at the Mount Pleasant complex, 50 kilometers from Puerto Argentino. It recruits across the island of Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, and defines itself as of “a hard and aggressive character” in combat, according to its own institutional description. For years, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued condemnation communiqués every time the United Kingdom announced missile exercises or maneuvers in the islands.
This framework gives the United Kingdom effective military control over a key area for the transit of energy resources, high-seas fishing, scientific and logistical projection towards the white continent and the southern Pacific, while Argentina does not even observe it. The Royal Irish Regiment, to which the newly deployed company belongs, is the only Irish infantry unit of the line of the British Army. On land, a rotating infantry company, engineers, explosive ordnance disposal and communications units, and an air defense artillery detachment with the state-of-the-art Sky Sabre missile system are deployed. The device is completed by the constant presence of a Royal Navy patrol vessel assigned to the role of Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Patrol Vessel, such as HMS Forth or HMS Medway, which patrols the surrounding waters, supports joint exercises, and extends the surveillance radius towards the routes connecting the Atlantic with Antarctica. There operate four Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4 fighters of the 1435 Flight, assigned to the air defense of the Malvinas, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands; an Airbus Voyager KC2 and an A400M Atlas of the 1312 Flight, which combine air-to-air refueling, tactical transport, and maritime patrol; in addition to helicopters and civilian contracted aircraft for logistical support and search and rescue.
The change is part of the regular rotation of forces, but it is part of a permanent structure that maintains between 1,000 and 2,000 deployed personnel continuously, with air, naval, and land capabilities to control the maritime and air space of the South Atlantic, the routes to the Antarctic Peninsula, and access to the Pacific via the Drake Passage. The Mount Pleasant complex functions as a joint operational base. In contrast, under the administration of Javier Milei, there have been no public protests of a similar tenor against the troop rotations and the sustained strengthening of the Mount Pleasant base, while the Casa Rosada deepens its alignment with Washington and participates in naval exercises such as UNITAS alongside the main political and military ally of London, which is not bad to do, but clarifying what needs to be clarified. In fact, the United Kingdom administers the Malvinas as a military and political-strategic platform from which it controls access to natural resources, ocean routes, and logistical corridors to Antarctica and the southern Pacific, supported by an advanced scheme of air, naval, and electronic surveillance. Its light infantry companies are organized with squads equipped with standard British Army assault rifles, medium machine guns GPMG, designated marksman rifles, and portable anti-tank systems NLAW and Javelin, in addition to 81 mm mortars for indirect fire support, which gives them a high firepower for the supposed terrestrial defense of the occupied archipelago.
