[briga]

One thing I think this article overlooks is that Argentina was a superpower, at least before the Panama canal was built. Before that, pretty much all shipping between the Atlantic and the Pacific had to go south around Argentina and Chile. Buenos Aires was one of the best stops along that route, and so it became one of the richest places on earth. After the Panama canal was built most of this traffic dropped off, and so did Argentina's fortunes. It's just so far away from everywhere that it has never been as geographically significant since.

[more_corn]

Seems like Argentina was wealthy till the 1940s the Panama Canal was completed in 1914. I visited buenos Aries twenty years ago and it reminded me of Paris. Grand old architecture, big buildings wide avenues. Something happened in the latter half of the 20th century that caused it to decline and stagnate. I always thought it was dictatorships, civil unrest and hyperinflation, but maybe those are symptoms and not causes.

[noir_lord]

Militarily they where powerful however they bought that power they didn't build it (UK was primary supplier of their battleships when they had their arms races with Chile and Brazil respectively) so it was a bit of a glass hammer situation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnl-wtl5-1E Drachinifel covers part of it here as well as he usually does.