At the time of the crisis, the Argentine military was substantially larger than that of Chile; in addition, the Chilean regime was more politically isolated and had suffered deteriorating relations with its main suppliers of arms. The Chilean military, however, had the advantage of defending difficult terrain, as well as being a more professional force, while decades of intervention by the Argentine armed forces in day-to-day politics had degraded their professional skills. There was considerable international condemnation of the Chilean regime's
human rights record, with the United States expressing particular concern after
Orlando Letelier's 1976 assassination in
Washington D.C., though the U.S. had helped to install the Pinochet administration initially. The United States banned the export of weapons to Chile through the
Kennedy Amendment, later
International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act of 1976. 16
Northrop F-5's were delivered to Chile before the embargo took effect, but they arrived without any armament. In 1980 Chile was excluded from
UNITAS joint naval maneuvers because of human rights violations.
Germany,
Austria and the
United Kingdom the traditional supplier of the Chilean Armed Forces, did not supply weapons to Chile. In 1974, the Argentine Navy commissioned two modern
Type 209 submarines, and , complementing two older
GUPPY submarines, and . In 1978, the United States extended the Kennedy amendment to Argentina as well because of its human rights record, which led to the Armed Forces purchases shifting to Europe: France, Germany, and Austria exported weapons to Argentina even during the critical phase of the Beagle conflict, as Argentina had already rejected the international binding Arbitral Award. In December 1978, when the outbreak of war appeared unavoidable, the German shipbuilders
Blohm + Voss agreed to build
four destroyers for the Argentine
Junta. In November 1978 France delivered two
corvettes,
Good Hope and
Transvaal, to Argentina, originally built for the
apartheid regime in South Africa, but undeliverable because of
anti-apartheid embargoes; in Argentina they were renamed and . United States President
Ronald Reagan (1981–1989) later improved relations with Argentina in recognition of their military support for Nicaragua's
Contras. (See
Operation Charly). The United Kingdom delivered
Type 42 destroyers to the Argentine junta. On 19 September 1977 (built and completed in the UK) sailed to Argentina from the
Vickers Shipbuilding yard in
Barrow-in-Furness; on 28 November 1981 (built in Argentina, completed in the UK) sailed from
Portsmouth. An overview of both countries' defense spending: • Costs in millions of 1979
US dollars. The Argentines' numerical advantage was counterbalanced by the following factors: • Defense is less risky than attack • Chile spent a higher portion of its
gross domestic product on
defense • The politicization of the Argentine
armed forces diminished their military readiness • The
Andes mountain range is a difficult natural barrier and the geography of the
Tierra del Fuego provided advantages to Chilean naval forces in the immediate operational theatre The Ambassador of the United States in Argentina (1978)
Raúl Castro described the attitude of the Argentine military towards a possible war with the following: == Argentine plan ==