The attrition rate for British troops in Afghanistan, with a soldier being killed every day during the offensive launched three weeks ago, has recalled the worst moments of the Falklands conflict in 1982 when announcements about fatal casualties were solemnly made by an official at the Ministry of Defence.

The toll of deaths in Afghanistan bears little comparison with the casualty figures during the six-week war in the South Atlantic in which 256 service personnel died. But there is the same sense of the relentless momentum of battle. In the last ten days, the British public has had to become accustomed to the daily ritual of grim MoD announcements from Helmand province.

The Falklands conflict was cast in a different light because the public was largely in support of the decision by Margaret Thatcher to send a naval task force 8,000 miles to the South Atlantic to liberate the islands of the Argentine invaders. The objective was clear-cut and understood.

The deaths, though tragic, were placed within the context of a declared military mission which was to give the Falkland Islands back to its British inhabitants and to expel the occupiers.

The multiple deaths, nevertheless, were shocking: 20 killed when HMS Sheffield was sunk, 22 on HMS Ardent, 19 on HMS Coventry, 16 from 2 Para killed at Goose Green, 39 Welsh Guardsmen killed in the Argentine air attack on Bluff Cove, eight Scots Guardsmen killed at Tumbledown. In such a short war, the casualty rate was high.

Now, 27 years later, British forces are engaged in ferocious fighting with the Taleban and, in the process, are losing men at an increasing rate.

Military commanders planning major offensives against a well-armed enemy always take into account the risk of high casualties. They have to weigh these risk against the objectives to be reached. In the case of Operation Panther’s Claw, the mission is to clear central Helmand of Taleban influence and to hold the ground so that the local Afghans can lead a safer existence and can vote in the August presidential election without the fear of being intimidated.

Brigadier Tim Radford, the commander of the Task Force in Helmand, will have anticipated casualties among his men, just as the Government of Margaret Thatcher in 1982 made certain assumptions about likely losses in the Falklands conflict.

However, the Helmand campaign is not in any sense a full-scale conventional war, as was the case in the South Atlantic. The troops in the province are engaged in countering an insurgency and trying to help build stability for the local people.

In these last few days, however, the daily announcements of soldiers dying have reminded the British public that this is a war and that the enemy, home-grown and difficult to distinguish from the rest of the Afghans, is taking the lives of young men, many of them in their late teens and early 20s.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Oh no, Mr Darling: you have failed
• BBC survives dogfight over Kennel Club expose
• Where the Rosetta belongs can’t be set in stone