{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.0248107653490328, 'fraction_numerical': 0.011354079058031959, 'mean_word_length': 5.038071065989848, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 1, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
British Special Forces and the Falklands conflict: Twenty years on

the recent conflict in Afghanistan. These units working alongside indigenous elements formerly known as the “Northern Alliance” have been instrumental in the collapse of the Taliban regime and the flight of the Al-Qaida network in that country. Occasionally, but not often, television crews have captured members of Special Forces (American and British) on film guiding strike aircraft and their bombs onto ground targets or riding about the countryside in vehicles bristling with weaponry. Twenty years ago during the Falklands conflict, the exposure of these units was considerably less despite the fact that certain journalists appeared glued to the movements of British Special Forces. Undoubtedly, their role was as important as that in Afghanistan today but the unique environment of the South Atlantic (about 8,000 miles from the UK) forced the average journalist to file reports through the Royal Navy and such facilities were limited as well as subject to military scrutiny.1 Nevertheless, some material emerged after the conflict, but not much. Even on the tenth anniversary of the conflict, it was still difficult to find literature concerning the activities of British Special Forces. Of course, with the historical dust settling rapidly, general texts such as Martin Middlebrook’s Task Force2 and Admiral Sandy Woodward and Patrick Robinson’s One Hundred Days3 contained some material but not a great deal. More specialized books such as Secret Armies4 by James Adams and Tony Geraghty’s updated Who Dares Wins – The Special Air Service, 1950 to the Gulf War5 offered more information, but not in vast quantities. One of the most revealing articles on the role of Special Forces at this time (but still just a morsel) was written by General Sir Michael Rose entitled “Advance Force Operations: The SAS” in Linda Washington’s Ten Years On – The British Army in the Falklands War,6 produced, as the title suggests, to offer a ten-year retrospective. Sadly, this was still an age in which writing about Special Forces in Britain (particularly memoirs) was discouraged and any research on this aspect of the Falklands conflict needed to cast a wide net. Today, the literary scene is quite different. Since the groundbreaking publication of Defense & Security Analysis Vol. 18, No. 4, pp. 319–332, 2002