“Yes, they either find themselves a lot of money or China decides to become generous with their military largess. I’m curious that the UK has not (at least I’ve not read of it) beefed up their local homeland defense apparatus. As I recall, one of the UK possessions maintained conscription long after the mainland abandoned it.”
Well, when the Falklands were invaded in 1982 we had 50 marines there, we now have the Falklands Islands Defence Force which is company sized and comprises entirely of islanders funded by the island govt. We also have a 500 strong British Army garrison, plus permanent deployments of RN ships and submarines and the permanent RAF presence of Typhoons, VC10’s and Hercules. In the event of imminent invasion, the Joint Rapid Reaction Force will be deployed as per:
http://navy-matters.beedall.com/jrrf.htm
So things are beefed up from 1982, but in all honesty Argentina doesn’t have the ability to attack and if they try to build up to it, it will be obvious. This newly built-up force will then have to get past several Type-45s, several Astute class subs whilst dodging tomahawks and all in the hope we don’t lose our rag completely and invlove our Vanguard class assets. It’s just not going to happen. What will happen is they will keep applying political pressure and pressure from their allies whilst hoping Obama will take his usual anti-British evil empire oppressor of downtrodden Argentina stance and try to rid the south atlantic of the evil British! :)