Concentrating on the Falklands War, this work argues that two of the central issues in the build up to the war was Argentina's rapidly developing nuclear weapons programme and the US government's desire to maintain an ally in Britain who was commited to Soviet containment. Richard Thornton contends that the solution to the two problems was found in the Falklands War. He provides an account of Byzantine political manoeuvres, high-level conspiracy and an attempt to achieve US and UK foreign policy goals.