• 4 min de lectura
• 4 min de lectura
Repealing or replacing the Argentine Defense Directive of 2021 would correct an improper formulation, but not the historical and operational perspective that made it possible. Chilean sovereignty over the Strait is legally settled. What remains open is who organizes the southern space and transforms presence, knowledge, and infrastructure into influence.
A closed controversy, a persistent interest
The sequence did not begin with Directive 457. Chile took effective possession of the Strait in 1843; Argentina protested in 1847; the 1855 treaty referred differences to negotiation or arbitration. In 1881, both banks came under Chilean sovereignty. Its Article V neutralized the passage in perpetuity, ensured free navigation, and prohibited fortifications contrary to that regime. In 1984, Article 10 set the eastern limit between Punta Dungeness and Cabo del Espíritu Santo, distributed sovereignties, and obliged Argentina to keep navigation clear through its waters to and from the Strait. Article 14 declared the solution definitive. The law closed the territorial controversy, but not the strategic interest.
The 1893 Protocol must be read precisely. It declared that Chile could not claim points towards the Atlantic nor Argentina towards the Pacific, within a clarifying agreement on Andean demarcation, coastlines, and specific territorial operations. The clause retains interpretive and demarcating value in that context. It did not divide the oceans, did not delimit maritime spaces, did not alter the Strait's regime, nor did it attribute regulatory or co-administration powers to Argentina. The 1977 Beagle arbitration award rejected projecting it outside its object. At the eastern access, the conclusive rule is that of 1984.
There are not almost two centuries of unresolved sovereignty nor an identical Argentine policy under all governments. There is something more persistent than an incident: a geography that leads different political, military, and administrative actors to converge, with variable languages, on the same southern interest.
The contemporary grammar
Directive 457/2021 brought this ambiguity to national defense by speaking of shared spaces and joint control over the Strait and the Drake Passage. Repealing it would matter, but it would not erase the underlying conception. Decree 256/2010 subjects certain navigations related to the South Atlantic islands to authorization. It does not regulate the Strait nor does it prove a claim over it. It does show how a strategic vision acquires administrative effects on maritime flows. Its compatibility with Article 10 of 1984 depends on its concrete application.
Argentine sophistication consists of producing effects without reopening treaties. Tierra del Fuego, South Atlantic, Malvinas, Ushuaia, surveillance, cartography, infrastructure, polar logistics, and Antarctica appear integrated into a relatively coherent representation. Each piece admits an autonomous justification; accumulated, they increase presence, information, and centrality. They do not create rights over Magellan, but they alter the practical distribution of capabilities in its environment. The strategy operates by sedimentation, not by frontal claim.
The Chilean blind spot
Chile possesses consolidated title and effective administration: pilotage, traffic control, hydrography, security, and operational response. Its deficit is not legal, but the lack of integration between these assets and a southern policy capable of multiplying them. Reiterating sovereignty and protesting against every excess is necessary, but merely the threshold. If the response begins and ends in Argentina, Chile defends the file and surrenders the initiative.
The answer is a southern platform, not another corridor or hub. Punta Arenas, the Strait, Puerto Williams, passes, ports, airfields, science, data, energy, naval services, search and rescue must function as a system. This requires a State Southern Strategy: stable leadership, common legal and cartographic doctrine, investment, sustainable economic activity, population, identifiable responsible parties, budgetary continuity, and evaluation by effective capabilities, not by announcements.
Cooperation with Argentina is indispensable, but it does not dilute competencies. Every joint task must specify its object, area, authority, duration, and effects. Trust is strengthened when responsibilities are unequivocal and each State fully exercises its own.
Magellan does not need another declaration of belonging. It must be the organizing principle of Chilean presence between the Pacific, the Atlantic, and Antarctica. Treaties established sovereignty and limits. What remains is to close the gap between possessing Magellan, effectively administering it, and thinking about southern power from Magellan.
