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Analysis · South Atlantic

The South Atlantic is a system, and Argentina discusses it in parts

Buenos Aires treats the Malvinas, Antarctica, illegal fishing and Tierra del Fuego as separate files. London runs them as a single system, with one command linking Mount Pleasant, South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands and Ascension, and with a web of South American relationships that lowers the cost of staying in the South Atlantic. Chile, Uruguay and Brazil sustain that web without ever withdrawing their diplomatic support for the Argentine position, because so far that double game has cost them nothing.

Author: Alejandro Taibi · Cut-off date: September 10, 2026

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Why it matters

No South American state needs to declare itself a British ally over the Malvinas for the sum of its decisions to end up lowering the British cost of remaining in the South Atlantic. London did not manage to convince Chile, Uruguay or Brazil that the islands are British. It achieved something more useful, which is to separate diplomatic position from material behaviour.

The difference between the way London and Buenos Aires look at the South Atlantic is one of method before it is one of force.

Argentina divides it administratively. The Malvinas are one policy, Antarctica another, illegal fishing another, Tierra del Fuego another. The Navy, the merchant marine, the ports, offshore hydrocarbons and the relationship with Chile, Uruguay and Brazil belong to different agencies and, very often, to separate political debates that never meet.

The United Kingdom does the opposite.

British documentation updated in August 2026 places under a single command, British Forces South Atlantic Islands, the military complex at Mount Pleasant, British responsibilities over South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, and British military activity on Ascension Island. The 2025 British Strategic Defence Review also integrates those positions into an Integrated Global Defence Network, whose declared function is to use bases, defence diplomacy, technology and relations with partner countries to defend British interests and deliver global reach.

That is the right starting point for any Argentine policy that aims to outlast a single term of office. The strategic adversary manages a network, not an island, and the Argentine response should begin by describing that network precisely.

What the South Atlantic system is

From the standpoint of Argentina's national interest, the system can be read in five interdependent components, supported by the corporate, financial and diplomatic ties that hold them together.

1. The territorial core. The Malvinas, South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands and the corresponding maritime spaces. This is not only a matter of land surface. Around those territories lie claimed fishing jurisdictions, seabed and subsoil resources, positions for maritime and air surveillance, and vast oceanic spaces.

The United Nations continues to recognise expressly that a sovereignty dispute exists between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the Malvinas, which remain on the list of non-self-governing territories. The Decolonisation Committee took up the matter again in June 2026. The geopolitical significance of these territories is multiplied because they form an arc running from the South American continental shelf towards sub-Antarctic and Antarctic waters.

2. The military component. Mount Pleasant works as a node of permanent presence rather than as a garrison tasked with preventing an Argentine military recovery. The British Ministry of Defence itself integrates it into a worldwide military network and acknowledges that BFSAI holds responsibilities linking the Malvinas, South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands and Ascension.

Ascension is decisive because it turns the Atlantic into strategic depth. British presence neither ends in the Malvinas nor begins in Great Britain; there are intermediate steps. That changes the relevant comparison. The question is not Argentina against the inhabitants of the islands, but Argentine capability against a nuclear-armed NATO power that folds its southern positions into a global military infrastructure.

3. The economic component. Here we find fishing, oil, possibly gas, and the services derived from those activities. During the 2024-2025 season the Argentine Coast Guard (Prefectura Naval) counted some 523 foreign fishing vessels identified across the whole area adjacent to the exclusive economic zone, the Malvinas, South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands and Antarctica. Of these, 141 were recorded around the Malvinas, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.

The Sea Lion project adds a qualitatively different dimension. The problem is not only the oil extracted. Sustained production capitalises the occupied territory, generates tax revenue, port infrastructure, specialised services and employment, and draws in international corporate interests, insurance, shipping and financial ties that increase the economic autonomy of the island administration.

That is why the Argentine reaction of 3 and 4 September 2026 matters. The Government opened proceedings against 45 individuals and companies, including shareholders and service providers of the project. An economically self-sufficient occupation is far harder to reverse than a subsidised one.

4. The logistical component. This is one of Argentina's great blind spots. No oceanic position is sustained by soldiers or legal documents alone. It needs ports, fuel, food, spare parts, hospitals, workshops, crews, airports, commercial flights, sea freight, insurance and communications.

This is where the South American countries come in. Official information from the islands' administration indicates that in 2026 there is a weekly LATAM flight between Chile and Mount Pleasant, British flights from Brize Norton, and a regular shipping service between the islands and Uruguay, with periodic calls in Chile. That deserves a more precise definition than «commercial relations». Chile and Uruguay objectively reduce the geographic cost of the British occupation. The statement does not imply that their governments recognise British sovereignty, because they do not. It describes a material function.

5. The Antarctic component. This is probably the most important dimension for the future. Argentina, Chile and the United Kingdom have overlapping Antarctic claims, although Article IV of the Antarctic Treaty preserves existing positions and provides that activities carried out while the Treaty is in force cannot create, enlarge or extinguish titles of sovereignty.

That legal freeze does not make presence irrelevant, because scientific, logistical, cartographic, meteorological, air and maritime capacity keeps producing material capability. In December 2025 the United Kingdom published its first Antarctic strategy to 2035, which expressly lists the defence of its sovereign interests among its objectives.

Chile, the most delicate case

Two simplifications should be set aside. Chile is not a British satellite. Nor is it a neutral actor from the standpoint of the southern balance of forces.

The available documentation is too explicit to ignore. Chile and the United Kingdom maintain a Letter of Intent on Antarctic Cooperation 2023-2028, with an institutionalised bilateral dialogue between their Antarctic agencies and scientific cooperation. In May 2026 a delegation from the British Royal College of Defence Studies visited Punta Arenas, the Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH) and the icebreaker Almirante Viel; the British communication itself described Chile as a strategic partner in defence and security, space observation, critical minerals and Antarctic cooperation. Punta Arenas still provides the weekly commercial air link with Mount Pleasant. And during Operation Austral Endurance, British forces based in the South Atlantic worked with Chilean counterparts to improve Antarctic operating capabilities.

Taken one by one, each fact can be presented as normal cooperation between states. Seen together they form another picture, made of Punta Arenas, Chilean Antarctic infrastructure, British scientific cooperation, defence cooperation, connectivity with Mount Pleasant and projection towards the Antarctic Peninsula. No conspiracy is needed. A map is.

At the same time, Chile officially maintains its support for Argentine rights over the Malvinas. Santiago therefore runs a two-track policy, with diplomatic solidarity towards Argentina and material cooperation with the United Kingdom. From the Chilean point of view this is entirely rational, because it gains access to the Argentine market, Argentine energy, physical integration, regional trade, a privileged link with a European power, military cooperation, Antarctic know-how and the positioning of Punta Arenas as a gateway to Antarctica. What matters is that, to this day, the Argentine cost of that double game has been practically nil.

The Chilean economic paradox

Here lies one of the most revealing data points. In 2025 trade between Chile and Argentina reached US$7.931 billion. Argentina is today Chile's fifth trading partner and its second in South America. Trade in goods between Chile and the United Kingdom in the same year was approximately US$1.110 billion according to official Chilean statistics. More importantly, Chilean imports from Argentina amounted to US$6.865 billion, against only US$609 million from the United Kingdom.

In energy the asymmetry is greater. The Chilean Ministry of Energy reported that in 2025 around 20% of its energy imports came from Argentina, which became its second energy supplier after the United States.

The material relationship with Argentina is by far larger than the relationship with Britain. Why, then, can Chile cooperate with London in sectors that are extremely sensitive for us? Because economic benefit and strategic alignment are not the same variable. London offers something else, namely technology, knowledge, military cooperation, financial integration, academic prestige, international networks and association with an extra-regional power. Above all, Chile learned that it can have both at once. Argentina's problem is not that Chile chose Britain over us. It is something rather more uncomfortable, which is that Chile never had to choose.

Uruguay, the least observed logistical rearguard

Uruguay is a different case. Its importance stems not from Antarctica but from Montevideo. Geographic proximity to the South Atlantic and port infrastructure make it a natural logistics platform, and the islands' official documentation today confirms a regular shipping service with Uruguay.

These ties are not new. A description by the British embassy itself pointed out a decade ago the supply of Uruguayan fruit and vegetables, Uruguayan fishermen working in the islands, medical care for islanders in Montevideo and explicit efforts to increase commercial links.

Nor is this merely history. In May 2026 Uruguay and the United Kingdom signed a new memorandum of bilateral strategic cooperation on economic and institutional matters; the process had identified infrastructure, aerospace, artificial intelligence and innovation among the priority areas. In July London also opened consultations aimed at deepening its trade relationship with Uruguay as Uruguay's accession to the CPTPP moves forward. There is also British-Uruguayan cooperation in defence and military training, and an earlier commitment to develop Antarctic cooperation.

The same contradiction reappears. Uruguay backs Argentina diplomatically on the Malvinas, while certain Uruguayan activities help keep the island economy connected to the continent. The economic asymmetry is once again considerable. In 2025 Argentina exported some US$1.624 billion to Uruguay and imported US$558 million, around US$2.182 billion in trade in goods. British trade in goods with Uruguay in 2025 was about £501 million according to British statistics. Added to that are Salto Grande, shared physical infrastructure, Mercosur, tourism, reciprocal investment and the interdependence of the Río de la Plata.

Uruguay obtains much more than trade from Argentina. It obtains immediate continental depth. And even so, like Chile, it was able to develop relations with London and connections with the islands at practically no Argentine cost.

Brazil, the most complex case

Brazil cannot be placed in the same category. There is not enough evidence to claim that it currently provides the Malvinas with a logistical function equivalent to Chile's or Uruguay's. On the contrary, Brazil still officially supports the Argentine position, and in June 2026 it spoke before the Decolonisation Committee on behalf of the South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone (ZOPACAS).

But there is a new development that no serious Argentine reading can ignore. On 26 March 2026 Brazil and the United Kingdom raised their relationship to a Strategic Partnership 2026-2030 that is not merely commercial. It includes defence cooperation, technology transfer, defence-industrial cooperation, training, joint exercises, military exchanges, space cooperation, defence research and innovation, maritime information sharing and cooperation on military doctrine.

That fact must be read alongside another. Contemporary British military strategy states explicitly that London will use defence diplomacy and relations with partner countries as part of its global network. It cannot be shown that the Brazil-UK partnership is aimed at the Malvinas, and claiming so would be false. Nor can it be argued that it is geopolitically irrelevant for Argentina that the leading South American power should deepen military, technological, space and doctrinal cooperation with the extra-regional power that keeps a military base on territory claimed by Argentina. That is the question Buenos Aires ought to be asking.

The interdependence is enormous. Official Brazilian data show that in 2025 Argentina was Brazil's third economic partner. Brazilian exports to Argentina exceeded US$18 billion and imports from Argentina approached US$13 billion. That is more than US$31 billion in total, built on dense automotive, industrial, nuclear, electricity and gas integration. In April 2026 both countries completed a bilateral study aimed at developing exports of Vaca Muerta gas to Brazil. The British-Brazilian economic relationship is significant, but the declaration of the new strategic partnership itself records £13.3 billion in bilateral trade.

Once again, the point is not that Brazil commercially preferred London, but that Brasília believes it can maximise both relationships at once. From its perspective this is rational. From ours, it is fair to ask whether that freedom of manoeuvre should extend without limit to matters that directly affect the strategic balance of the South Atlantic.

London does not need anti-Argentine allies

This is probably the most important conclusion of this investigation. There is no serious evidence of a Chile-Uruguay-Brazil-United Kingdom pact secretly directed against Argentina. None is needed.

British strategy obtains better results through something far less visible, which is continental redundancy. If Argentina tries to isolate the occupation, there are connections through Chile. If a difficulty arises with Chile, there is Uruguay. If London needs to widen its political, military, scientific or technological penetration in the region, it has relations with Brazil. If it needs Antarctic scientific legitimacy, it cooperates with Chile. If it needs regional services, there is a continental business network. And behind all of this stand Ascension and the direct link with Great Britain.

The consequence is striking. No South American state needs to declare itself a British ally over the Malvinas for the sum of its decisions to end up lowering the British cost of remaining in the South Atlantic. That is far more efficient than a formal alliance.

Where the threshold lies

The term should be defined precisely. Maintaining normal diplomatic or commercial relations with the United Kingdom should not be considered collaboration contrary to the Argentine interest; we maintain them too. The threshold has to be material.

Collaboration objectively contrary to the Argentine interest would exist when a regional person, company or state directly supplies the economy of the disputed territories; provides regular passenger or cargo transport; facilitates repairs, bunkering, insurance or port services for vessels linked to unauthorised exploitation; takes part directly or indirectly in Sea Lion or any other resource exploitation; provides infrastructure or services that increase British military capabilities based in the disputed territories; uses Antarctic cooperation to materially strengthen British positions that overlap with Argentine ones; helps build separate international recognition of the islands as a sovereign entity; or finances, insures or advises economic operations whose legality Argentina does not recognise.

This is an operational definition, and it makes it possible to distinguish legitimate cooperation with Britain from material assistance to the consolidation of the territorial status quo.

The indispensable partner of the British system is our own weakness

A serious doctrine cannot blame everything on the neighbours. That self-deception has already cost us dearly. There are national factors that objectively favour the British position.

Political discontinuity. This is probably the main one. In 2016 the Foradori-Duncan communiqué agreed to take measures to remove obstacles limiting the economic growth and sustainable development of the islands in trade, fishing, shipping and hydrocarbons. In 2018 Argentina accepted a new regional air link with the islands via São Paulo. In 2026 the State is opening sanctions against participants in Sea Lion. Each policy can be debated; what cannot be denied is the oscillation. An external power that thinks in decades benefits enormously when its counterpart changes doctrine every four years.

Economic de-maritimisation. The Argentine State itself acknowledged in 2025 that since 1991 the national merchant marine had lost more than 80% of its flag fleet. A country that claims vast oceanic spaces but depends on others to carry its foreign trade holds legal sovereignty without equivalent maritime power.

Relative military weakness. According to the latest SIPRI data, Argentina spent around US$3.876 billion on defence in 2025, against some US$88.978 billion for the United Kingdom. The comparison does not mean that we should pursue parity, which would be absurd. It means that recovering a minimum capacity for deterrence, ocean surveillance, maritime patrol, air defence and situational awareness is a condition of state credibility rather than an accessory to Malvinas policy.

Logistical vulnerability in Tierra del Fuego. Ushuaia should be one of the great logistics hubs of the southern hemisphere. Yet in January 2026 the national authority itself described infrastructure deficits serious enough to order the administrative intervention of the port, which it simultaneously described as strategic for Antarctic projection. While we argue over who runs a pier, Punta Arenas competes to become the international gateway to Antarctica.

Institutional fragmentation. The Foreign Ministry handles the Malvinas, Defence controls military capabilities, the Economy Ministry administers hydrocarbons and ports, Tierra del Fuego defends provincial powers, the Coast Guard watches the sea, the Navy pursues maritime interests, the INIDEP studies fishery resources and Antarctic policy has its own framework. Each agency can act correctly and the system as a whole can still fail. That is why the recent decision to create a cross-cutting national security structure deserves attention, since Sea Lion is forcing the State to recognise that sovereignty, economy, intelligence, defence and infrastructure are part of the same problem.

Cultural continentalism. We have had a mandatory bicontinental map since 2010 and, even so, a Malvinas culture without sufficient maritime culture. The island is remembered while the continental shelf is far less known. The war is commemorated while the merchant marine is much less discussed. Antarctica is claimed while ports, icebreakers, oceanographic research, shipbuilding, submarine cables, fisheries and polar logistics receive less attention. The result is a sovereignty that is symbolically intense and materially incomplete.

What would happen if Argentina began to impose costs

Here too wishful thinking should be set aside. We have instruments of pressure, but not the same capacity towards Chile, Uruguay and Brazil, and indiscriminate sanctions would be a mistake.

Against the companies involved, capacity is high. Law 26,659 expressly prohibits participating in, financing, contracting or providing financial, logistical, technical or advisory services to unauthorised hydrocarbon activities on the continental shelf claimed by Argentina. Sanctions include disqualification for five to twenty years and a bar on contracting with the State. The precedent exists, since Navitas was disqualified for twenty years in 2022. That is why the September 2026 extension to shareholders and suppliers carries far more weight than a diplomatic protest. The principle can be simple. Whoever contributes economically to unilateral exploitation will have to choose between that business and the Argentine market. That does force a corporate decision.

With Chile, conditionality rather than punishment. We have significant economic capacity, and that does not mean cutting relations or closing borders. The energy variable is especially sensitive, with that 20% of Chile's 2025 energy imports coming from Argentina. But arbitrary energy cuts would be legally questionable, would destroy our reputation as a supplier and would push Chile to look for substitutes. The intelligent tool is to make future extraordinary benefits conditional, such as very long-term energy contracts, new export infrastructure, Argentine financing, logistics projects, public procurement, defence cooperation, regulatory benefits and joint Antarctic projects. Not as collective punishment but as strategic reciprocity. An Argentina that supplies competitive gas for thirty years has the right to ask what it gets in return on the strategic plane.

With Uruguay, corporate precision. Buenos Aires could raise the cost for companies that operate both in Argentina and in activities linked to the disputed territories, and tighten controls over shipping lines, insurers, bunkering, port agencies, suppliers, contractors, banks and operators linked to extractive projects. A trade war against Uruguay would be strategically clumsy, because we need a cooperative Río de la Plata and Uruguay needs us. Precisely for that reason there is room for a more precise regional rule. No Mercosur state should allow its territory to serve as a platform for unilateral economic exploitation carried out in territories subject to a sovereignty dispute recognised by the United Nations. That turns the Malvinas from rhetorical solidarity into a material obligation.

With Brazil, hard negotiation and not coercion. Trying to punish Brazil commercially would put at risk a relationship worth more than US$31 billion and industrial chains that are decisive for ourselves. The balance of power does not favour us. The appropriate tool is strategic negotiation. Brazil should be brought diplomatically to face a contradiction. Can it champion the South Atlantic as a zone of peace, support Argentine rights and deepen defence cooperation with Britain without setting any safeguard regarding the British forces deployed in the South Atlantic? A serious Argentine-Brazilian agreement should establish that no Brazilian-British military cooperation feeds BFSAI capabilities, uses information supplied from the region to reinforce Mount Pleasant, lends logistical support to forces assigned to the disputed territories or unilaterally facilitates British projection from the Malvinas into the Antarctic system. That would be verifiable, and it would force a shift from «Brazil supports the Malvinas» to a more useful question, namely what Brazil does materially so that this support has consequences.

The unit of sanction is not the country

Therein lies the difference between declamatory nationalism and power politics. Sanctioning Chile because it is Chile would be counterproductive. Sanctioning Uruguay because it is Uruguay, likewise. Trying to discipline Brazil commercially would probably be self-destructive.

The correct unit of sanction is conduct, with its actor identified and the Argentine benefit affected. A Chilean company takes part in Sea Lion and loses access to certain Argentine business. A Uruguayan shipping line provides essential services to an unauthorised operation and faces sanctions and restrictions within Argentine jurisdiction. A British company uses a Brazilian subsidiary to take part in prohibited operations, and corporate traceability is extended. A foreign military cooperation contributes to British capabilities deployed in the islands, and Argentina suspends or limits equivalent areas of strategic cooperation.

That produces something that practically does not exist today, an opportunity cost.

Why the neighbours can act this way

The answer is uncomfortable. Chile, Uruguay and Brazil are not risking everything. They calculated that they risk almost nothing.

Argentina offers them a market, energy, tourism, industrial integration, infrastructure, territorial access, Mercosur, electricity interconnections, gas and geographic proximity. Britain offers them capital, finance, technology, defence, universities, scientific cooperation, international integration, the CPTPP in certain cases, diplomatic relations and institutional prestige.

Why should they voluntarily give up either relationship if Argentina never turned its position into a material condition? The logic has nothing to do with friendship or betrayal and everything to do with the calculation of power, and our strategic mistake lies in expecting solidarity where we should have put incentives.

The missing doctrine

Argentine policy should move beyond the «Malvinas Question» understood in isolation and formulate something considerably larger, a National South Atlantic and Antarctic System that brings into a single plan the Malvinas, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, the continental shelf, Antarctica, the Argentine Sea, fishing, offshore hydrocarbons, the Navy, the Coast Guard, the Air Force, intelligence, ports, shipbuilding, the merchant marine, submarine cables, satellites, oceanography, polar research, Tierra del Fuego, Patagonia, Ushuaia and Río Grande, the relationship with Punta Arenas and with Montevideo, the link with Brazil, ZOPACAS, companies linked to resource exploitation, insurance, financing and logistics, and maritime education and culture.

Above all, it should apply a permanent rule. Every foreign, economic, energy, scientific, military or trade policy decision would have to be assessed for its cumulative effect on Argentina's balance of power in the South Atlantic. That is the missing criterion.

The decisive point

Britain's greatest skill did not lie in convincing Chile, Uruguay or Brazil that the Malvinas are British. It did not succeed, and all three continue to formally support the Argentine position; in June 2026 they did so again within the regional system.

London achieved something more useful. It managed to separate diplomatic position from material behaviour.

The neighbours can vote with us and trade with the islands. They can support sovereignty negotiations and cooperate militarily with London. They can defend the South Atlantic zone of peace and at the same time expand their defence partnership with Britain. They can back the Malvinas and help keep Mount Pleasant connected to South America. For them there is no contradiction, because Argentina never forced one to exist.

The Argentine reconstruction of power in the South Atlantic does not begin by asking who our friends are. It begins with a harsher question about which kinds of conduct serve the Argentine interest, which serve the British apparatus, and what concrete cost we are prepared to impose when the two become incompatible.

As long as regional solidarity remains free of charge, it will remain declaratory. The day that collaborating materially with British consolidation means losing real opportunities in Argentina, a genuine choice will appear for the first time. Only then will the continental dimension of the dispute begin to work in favour of the national interest, and not only against it.

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