John Nott – 1982 Comments on Viability of British Defending Falklands Islands

The comments made by John Nott, the then Defence Secretary, on 8 April 1982.

If Argentinian naval vessels comes into the 200-mile zone we will shoot first. It will be a judgement on their part, whether they want to risk coming into the zone. You’ll see. We wouldn’t start a battle we couldn’t win and I am confident that even though we are 8,000 miles away we have made arrangements for all the logistic support that we need for the fleet and the supporting arms, and that we can sustain it for a very long period of time. I am quite confident of that.