The Mac and Mike Weekly Podcast
Mike: Welcome back, folks, to the Mac and Mike Weekly Podcast. And I am Mike, that’s Mac. I’ll start doing what Mac always does and introduce ourselves.
Anyway, this week Mac sent me a text from Grok about the situation between Argentina and Great Britain. Back in 1982, when the original Falklands War was going on, Mac and I were much younger than we are today. My unit didn’t get sent—I don’t think you were involved—but it was big news. I remember the Argentinians hit one of the British ships with a French Exocet missile, and it was pretty devastating.
But now there are new, inflamed problems between the two, and we’re not sure because now we have good relations with Argentina and not-so-great relations with Great Britain because they didn’t let us use their fields and places for our bombers in the Iran conflict. So with all that going on, how do you think it’s going to turn out? What do you think is going to happen this time? Maybe explain a little of the backstory and what’s currently going on.
Mac: You know, Mike, I sent you that because I know you like to talk about things that are not necessarily being replayed all over the current news. I saw this, and it struck me what a different geopolitical set of circumstances we have today.
Back in 1982, South America was not necessarily in concert with North America and the United States. In fact, Argentina might even have been considered not friendly to the United States. Yet, we had wonderful relations with Great Britain. You might remember that was Margaret Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher was a big supporter of the United States, and she and Ronald Reagan were close personal friends in addition to trying to run both governments in a very conservative manner.
In 1982, there was literally a war; Argentina invaded the island. Now, the Falkland Islands—they have a different name in Argentina, but we’ll call them the Falkland Islands because that’s the name the British have given us—are about 300 miles off the coast of Argentina. Not that dissimilar from Taiwan off the coast of China, honestly. We support Taiwan, and in that Falklands War in 1982, we supported Great Britain. Now, it’s fair to say—as with many wars in the 20th century—if the United States had not taken up the side of Great Britain, it’s not unreasonable to suggest that Argentina might have taken over those Falkland Islands. The British military was in decline then, and it’s in a much steeper decline now. But the United States, obviously, is the big dog in the Western Hemisphere, and our support of the British during the Falkland Islands War maintained the Falkland Islands as a British protectorate, much like Bermuda and several other places throughout the world left of the British Commonwealth.
So the question I posed to you was: as you mentioned tangentially, when we wanted to put Iran in its place and take away their capability of creating a nuclear weapon, many of our NATO allies, including Great Britain, were asked for certain assistance. I think Great Britain had specifically asked for minesweepers, right? Because they have minesweepers and we didn’t. They refused. But more than that, they refused us the use of their airspace. They refused us landing rights for logistics.
Mike: Yeah, Diego Garcia, which is a big joint base that we cooperate with them quite a bit on.
Mac: So it made our sorties into Iran much more difficult. As you’re probably aware, the government of Great Britain has turned much less conservative, much more liberal, much more European Union-focused, and less focused on NATO and alliances and treaties with the United States.
At the same time that the relationship between us and Great Britain is cooling off and crumbling a bit, the relationship with many of the nations in South America is changing. It’s not just Argentina—it’s Colombia and several nations of South America. Not the socialist ones, but even Venezuela. Even though they’re still socialist, our relationship with Venezuela today is much better than it was five years ago, and we’re making headway and progress. The oil deal that the United States and Venezuela just cut for $65 billion worth or 65 million barrels of oil—that’s a great economic boom to our country, and it would never have happened five years ago with the socialists in power in Venezuela. They don’t really have an elected government yet, but my guess is that when they do have free and fair elections, the people of Venezuela will be much more closely aligned, and their government will be much more closely aligned to the United States than to socialist or communist countries like Cuba, China, and Russia.
So my question to you was—and this is happening, this is not a thought exercise—Argentina wants that island back. Compound the problem with something like 90%, 95%, or 98% of the people who live in the Falkland Islands wanting to stay where they’re at as a British protectorate. They don’t want to be part of Argentina. But Argentina claims ownership of the islands based on an 1800s treaty or something.
What will the United States do if Argentina decides they’re going to take the Falkland Islands? The situation is not dissimilar to China saying, “We want to take Taiwan.” The United States has in the past protected Taiwan, and in the past, we protected the Falkland Islands because of our treaty with Great Britain. What would we do if Argentina decides they’re going to forcibly take the Falkland Islands and make them part of Argentina? Because I don’t know the answer to that, Mike.
Let me tell you something: with Donald Trump’s recent comments about the Western Hemisphere and what they’re calling the “Donroe Doctrine”—not the Monroe Doctrine, but the Donroe Doctrine—I don’t know what we would do or how we would behave. But I would suggest this: it’s less likely that we would support Great Britain, and it’s more likely that we would support Argentina. I’m not at all certain if the United States would take either side in that conflict or stay completely neutral.
Mike: Yeah. Well, President Trump, when asked about it, said he was taking it under review. So that’s his response—they’re going to review things. That’s a typical Trumpism when things crop up that are not, as we said, headline news. Small potatoes compared to a lot of what’s going on in the world. He probably hasn’t had a whole lot of time to think about that in particular.
From what I understand, the problem is oil again, because off the coast of the Falklands, they have great oil reserves down there in the ocean. So they’re claiming that as part of their territory, and of course, Argentina wants that to be theirs. I don’t think Argentina necessarily wants the Falklands because they know 90% of the people voted—I think in 2013 or something, it was a 98-to-2 vote out of 90% of the population voting to stay with Great Britain.
Trump is the king of compromise, so you would think if the dispute is truly over oil revenue, maybe they come up with a 50/50 split or something like that in the future instead of an armed conflict. Back in 1982, Great Britain had a navy. Guess what? They don’t have that anymore.
Mac: That’s right.
Mike: They don’t have a navy—at least none to speak of. They had what, one minesweeper? They had no other ships that they could really mobilize because they’re all in disrepair and dry dock. They’ve got submarines, but they don’t have a lot of seagoing ships. So for them to actually prosecute a war that far away would be almost impossible without our help. And, of course, we don’t want to get tied up in that with all the other problems we have in the world.
Trump would probably be smart to say, “Okay, I’ll tell you what. The dispute’s really over oil revenue. The people of the Falkland Islands don’t want to go back to Argentina. So why don’t we just settle some kind of deal—a 50/50 split, a 40/60 deal between the two countries for what they really want, which is the oil revenue?”
Mac: Well, we’ll see, Mike. It’s not a hot item right now this minute, but I could see how it could relatively easily become a flaming trouble spot in South America.
I know what Donald Trump has in his vision, much like the Monroe Doctrine: “You guys do whatever you want, but stay out of the Western Hemisphere.” I know that is a goal of Donald Trump. Because of that, and because of the changing complexion of British society… there are 90 mosques in London today. In 1982, I would venture to guess that there were zero.
Mike: Yeah.
Mac: If that sounds anti-Islam or Islamophobic, I don’t mean it that way. What I mean is that the average population of Great Britain very much resembled the average population of the United States in 1982, and I’m not sure that’s true today. The government of Great Britain is no longer the staunch, strong, supportive ally of the United States that they were in 1982.
We see what’s going on in Cuba, and I know that the government of the United States, as it currently exists, would love to have a free society, a capitalist economic system, and a democratic government in Cuba. Those are all the things that they don’t have today. Cuba is failing; they can’t keep the lights on for their people. Part of that is the embargo, and part of that is the fact that Cuba used to send troops to protect Maduro, and Maduro sent oil back to them in exchange for payment of this guard that would keep Maduro safe.
There’s a lot of different issues that come into play in this whole South America thing. We have Cuba, we have Venezuela, and we have the drug cartels that are operating in many places in South America. You and I have had this conversation before, and it’s my considered opinion that at some point in time in the future, the United States of America is going to send military troops in conjunction with the local governments—not outside of the local governments, but in Mexico and other places in South America where the cartels hold and wield so much power. The United States is going to take those drug cartels out. They’re going to decapitate the head, kill the soldiers of that cartel, and return the governance of those various countries run by drug cartels back to the governments and the people of those countries.
The United States simply cannot allow its security to be subjugated by drug cartels. She simply can’t. I can’t predict surely when, but my grandson is in the 82nd Airborne, and there’s no doubt in my mind that at some point—it’s probably too big a job for Delta Force, but somebody like the Rangers or the SEALs, with the support of the Airborne, most decidedly are going to be ordered into those various places to take out the drug cartels. Many of those drug cartels are equipped weapon-wise as well as our military. They’re not trained as well, but from a weapons perspective, they can match up—sometimes with better weapons than we have. That’s not going to be pretty.
Mike: Yeah. I don’t know about the current status, but I do know about history because I was there, and we were providing intelligence for that type of thing for many years. I spent a lot of time down in Central and South America, and of course, good times in the Caribbean because we were Air Force—we got to stand off, stay in our nice hotels, and fly far away.
I did know special operators. It was kind of like Vietnam; we had advisors working with various countries like Colombia and Ecuador, and I’m sure we had some in Argentina at the time. I don’t know about Brazil. But those were small potatoes. I’ve always laughed because we talk about Trump taking out the drug boats. Not that I could ever say this, but there was a rumor that the F-16s flying out of Howard Air Force Base back in the day were doing something similar. Wink wink.
Mac: I’m doing the nod, nod, nod, nod.
Mike: Yeah. So it’s just the amount of numbers that you put to it. I think we were just pussyfooting around too much; we didn’t want to drag America into an all-out war. Trump would be reticent to do that. Even though there were special operations down there, it wasn’t mass special operations units—it was more in an advisory capacity and liaison work. They’d be out in the field with those guys, and some situations I heard about were pretty darn hairy.
I think for the next president—because we can’t fix this in two years, that’s just not going to happen…
Mac: No, it’s going to take a decade, Mike.
Mike: Yeah. So it’s all going to depend on the next several presidents to come in the future. If we have a situation like after Ronald Reagan where we get two more Republican presidents—like a JD Vance or a Marco Rubio—I think it’ll advance. I think they’ll keep those policies, because a stable Western Hemisphere overall is beneficial not just to America, but to the entire world. A stable region of the world—like they say, “a rising tide lifts all boats.” Even our enemies will benefit, and they don’t quite see that. But after enough time, they’ll see, “Oh, America’s a pretty cool country. They got things taken care of over there, we don’t have to worry, they’ll trade with us, we can buy stuff.” Whatever we used to force people to do, we don’t have to force it anymore, because trade takes the place of force.
Mac: You know, Mike, when Donald Trump brought up the idea of the United States having some sort of control over the island of Greenland, right?
Mike: Yeah.
Mac: Where were our NATO allies? Where did they align themselves, including Great Britain? With the Dutch.
I don’t know Donald Trump personally, but I’ve read a lot about him and I’ve read his book, The Art of the Deal. Two things I believe about Donald Trump:
- He’s no dummy, and he looks for win-win deals. In The Art of the Deal, he looks for ways to get ahead where everybody wins. Nobody tells Donald Trump what to do. Every time I hear some stupid conspiracy theory about “the Israelis are making us do this” or “the Russians are making him do that,” to me, that’s a bunch of hooey. Nobody tells Donald Trump what to do—just nobody does.
- If you cross Donald Trump, he does not easily forgive. Sometimes he does, but he never forgets.
The point I’m trying to make is that Great Britain has had many opportunities recently, since he’s been president in his second term, to align themselves with Donald Trump and make things easier for him to support his initiatives. I don’t know of a single one that they’ve supported.
In my opinion, if Argentina makes a strong play for the Falkland Islands, believing what I believe about Donald Trump, I believe he would be happy to have an opportunity to poke Great Britain in the eye because they’ve poked him several times. If he does that—now, I understand I’m doing hypothetical after hypothetical, and it’s never good to build a case based on hypotheticals—as I read the tea leaves, there’s a chance that the Falkland Islands might belong to Argentina in the next few years while Donald Trump is president. I think that will change geopolitical thinking, if not geopolitical maps.
When Donald Trump comes out and says, “Leave the Western Hemisphere alone,” you know what’s going on in Ukraine. If you remember when Donald Trump was running for president, what did he say? “I will end the Ukraine war day one when I’m president.” Well, that didn’t quite happen, but that’s pretty far away from the United States of America. What does Donald Trump say about Ukraine today? “That’s a European problem. Europeans need to pick up the slack there.” And in many ways, they are.
Mike: Yeah, and we’re helping. We’re letting them build their own missiles, helping them provide their own because they have the raw materials and technical people. I don’t want to get too silly…
Mac: License the technology for them to build Patriot missiles.
Mike: Yeah, we’ll help. That’s what I mean—we’ll help them, sure, because we have a shortage of our own. So here are the plans for building them, let’s put some engineers over there.
Mac: After World War II was over, people forget that the Secretary of State was a guy by the name of George Marshall. Marshall came up with what was known as the Marshall Plan. What it amounted to was a lend-lease program where we lent money to all of our allies so they could buy materials and products from us to help them rebuild. The idea was that they would repay us: we would give them the money, they would buy from us, our business and industry would be injected with a great deal of growth, and everyone would benefit.
Well, what happened was most of those loans were forgiven—most of them were never paid back. But it did help the American economy grow like crazy. After World War II, you almost would have had to be an idiot to get into manufacturing and fail, because we manufactured for the rest of the world for a long time.
Mike: Yeah, because we helped destroy most of the world. Not the Europeans, but the Germans and the Japanese, and they were all borrowing money from us to rebuild their countries. You mentioned the other day when we were talking, “Hey, this European electrical system is a whole lot better than the United States.”
Mac: Yeah. And why was that? Because we rebuilt them after the Second World War.
Mike: I noticed that on my first trip to Germany—Reforger—in like 1982. I asked why they had 220V lines. I was just a young guy, 23 or 24 years old, a one-striper, and I said, “Why do they have different electrical systems here?” “Oh, well, that’s because we rebuilt them after the Second World War.”
Then I was there in the ’90s, and they had high-speed internet. I said, “Why do they have high-speed internet everywhere here?” “Well, it’s because we rebuilt their infrastructure.” So it was much easier for them to provide themselves with high-speed internet before us.
What we did after the Second World War had ramifications into the future. I don’t know everything, so maybe they have other things built off of what we provided. What I’m trying to get to, to stitch all this together and tie it all together, Mike, is that what Donald Trump is doing—with his emphasis on Greenland, Cuba, South America, the Donroe Doctrine, even the trade agreement he’s trying to cut with Canada… Canada was benefiting to the tune of 50 or 60 billion dollars a year in revenue through their trade agreements, and Donald Trump is basically saying, “You can’t do that anymore.”
When Donald Trump put all those tariffs in place, what happened to the various manufacturers who wanted access to the American consumer market? They poured trillions of dollars into building manufacturing facilities here in North America because they wanted to avoid the import tariffs Donald Trump was creating. Well, guess what comes along with brand new manufacturing facilities on the dirt in the United States? All the manufacturing jobs that go along with that.
One of the things I heard about our emphasis on oil—not only our own oil, but this new oil deal with Venezuela—someone put it this way: “What do you want your sons, grandsons, or granddaughters to do in the future? Do you want them to have a good-paying, family-sustaining job at an oil refinery in the United States, or do you want them carrying an M4 in the Middle East to protect the oil coming out of the Middle East?”
Most average Americans I know would much rather have their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, and even great-grandsons and great-granddaughters with a nice, cushy, high-paying job in an oil refinery in the United States than carrying around an automatic weapon in the Middle East trying to keep the Straits of Hormuz open. You know what I mean?
So all of those things combined, when you look at what Donald Trump is doing, that’s why I believe if Argentina wants to take the Falkland Islands, the worst that’ll happen is Donald Trump will stand on the sidelines. What I think might very well happen is Donald Trump would support the Falklands coming under the influence and belonging to the government and nation of Argentina, simply because of the friendships we’re now building in South America. The relationships we want not only with the Central and South American governments that are already our friends, but also the ones we want to have in the future, like Cuba.
Again, this is an Al McCormick opinion, but in the future, I see Cuba as like the 51st state. We are going to be so inexorably connected economically, and they are going to have a democratic government that will maybe not follow us like a lapdog, but will certainly follow our lead greater than most others. They’re 90 miles off the coast of our nation.
Anyway, Mike, I guess we kind of beat this up a little bit. I don’t know how long it’s taken. I just want people to think about what happens if the Argentina claim to the Falkland Islands becomes a much hotter issue than it is today. How does Great Britain respond? More importantly, how does Donald Trump respond?
Mike: Well, we’ve got a couple of minutes left.
Mac: Well, I’m going to tell you something, Mike. I don’t know if you saw over the past short period of time, Donald Trump did some sort of rally in the state of Texas, trying to rally the Texas voters to support his candidates in Texas. It’s actually for the whole country, I think.
Mike: Yeah, it was a rally—a Republican convention sort of midterm Republican convention, because there were representatives from Nebraska and everywhere.
Mac: The point is, in my mind, what Donald Trump is doing is setting the stage. He not only wants to finish his next two years as president strong, implementing many of his ideas, but I also think he wants to set the stage for who replaces him—who follows him as the next president.
There are lots of theories that it could either be Marco Rubio, JD Vance, or DeSantis, the governor of Florida, and there are other names being bandied about. I think the next President of the United States will be whoever Donald Trump throws his support behind, and I don’t know who that’s going to be.
As I look at the midterm elections coming up this year and the presidential election coming up in another two years, if you wanted to suggest that the Democrats would retake the White House in 2028, who would be the candidate you project would be able to beat the likely Republican candidate? I can’t think of anyone that really could. We know the names of the top contenders, but they all have so many deep flaws that I don’t see any of them being able to make it.
The only one that might have been able to would be Josh Shapiro, our governor here in Pennsylvania. The problem is he can’t win. He’s Jewish, and the Democrats hate Jews now—not all of them, but a substantial portion of them. So he would probably lose just because of that. I don’t see that they have anybody. I really don’t.
Mike: Well, the only guy I see is the governor of Maryland. His name is Moore, and he’s a military guy.
Mac: Yeah. He’s done some good things with Maryland, but Maryland is a relatively small state.
Mike: Yeah, he’s made some bad moves there, too.
Mac: You look at the other contenders and they all have baggage. They’re governors or mayors of big states. Hochul, who is governor of New York, in my mind, has no chance. Mamdani is the mayor of New York…
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