Logotyp: till Försvarshögskolans hemsida

This study examines how Great Britain fared so well against the Fuerza Aérea Argentina during Operation Sutton of the Falklands war in 1982. This operation is problematic and interesting due to the fact that despite being severely outnumbered, the British managed very well and emerged victorious. The purpose of the operation was to land British materiel and personnel on the beach of San Carlos. Since the Argentines could only contest using its aerial forces, the battle was decided in the air. The study was conducted using the newly-released Underdog’s Model, a theory of asymmetric air power, as a theoretical lattice. The theory consists of six categories in which the underdog should seek to outperform its opponent in order to maximize its chances of winning. The purpose of the study is to gain a deeper understanding of how the British managed to win against a numerically superior opponent. There exists a research gap regarding the topic of the air war over the Falklands, and rarely has it been examined using a pair of theoretical spectacles. Therefore, this study would contribute to the current research field of military studies regarding asymmetric air power and the Falklands war. The general results of this study imply that the British managed to outperform the Argentines in basically all the categories. The category in which this was perhaps most evident was in “Engage vulnerable military targets”, while the one category where it was unclear was the one of “Creativity”.