Northern Patagonia has been on fire since mid-January 2025. To date, the fires around the town of El Bolsón in the Argentine province of Río Negro have been more or less brought under control. While other fires continue to spread or remain active, public authorities continue to underestimate the hybrid war being waged in Patagonia.

image host Satellite view of the the fires in El Bolsón, Wednesday, January 30, 2025. Source: Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS)

An exemplary response to the fires

The alert was given on Wednesday, January 30 at El Bolsón at around 4 pm. The weather was sunny, with a strong easterly wind. Three forest fires were detected, spreading out from the Cajón Azul locality of El Mallín Ahogado, just north of the town of El Bolsón. As I was passing through a nearby site, I was evacuated along with the other families stopping off at the same place. The evacuation operation, carried out by firefighters, civilians, and police officers, was flawless. Nearly 1,000 people were moved to the center of the town of El Bolsón. In four days, around a hundred houses were razed by the flames. Only one person lost his life, having decided of his own accord to fight the flames encircling his home.

The fight against the fire quickly turned into a flurry of fire engines, little fire-fighting aircraft, tankers, ambulances, and other logistical operations. It's clear that the local population is prepared to fight the flames. Neighbors are actively helping each other, alongside government and military officials, illustrating the spirit of solidarity that animates this community.

Carlos Banacloy, coordinator of the Forest Fire Prevention and Control Service (SPLIF) and Minister of Economy and Production for the province of Río Negro, was kind enough to welcome me to his offices on Sunday, February 2. This service was set up thirty years ago to deal with the risk of forest fires. It brings together the authorities, firefighters, government services, private actors, and civilian volunteers. In addition to satellite observation, the SPLIF has its own forest surveillance network. The initiative has helped to establish a genuine “territorial intelligence” to contain the threat. The scheme has been replicated in other Patagonian towns. On February 5, the same official drew up an interesting operational assessment of the maneuvers carried out on El Bolsón.

Emotional hemorrhage

Any incident of this nature inevitably generates a psycho-emotional wave. On the very day of the alert, rumors about the intentionality of the fires were already circulating at a low level. It was officially confirmed by the authorities the following day. The governors of Río Negro and Chubut, and the mayor of El Bolsón, were quick to issue their statements. Criminal intent immediately amplified the accusations and the search for scapegoats: indigenous Mapuche, real-estate speculators, municipal or provincial mafias, delinquent groups, and so on. A former health minister, Jorge Rachid, a member of the collective who travels from Buenos Aires to the estancia of English millionaire Joe Lewis in the El Foyel (Lago Escondido) area, for example, alludes to the responsibility of the tycoon and his supposed “mercenaries” in triggering the disaster.

The local media only partially reflects this reality. They provide important information in the light of ongoing operations. However, out of a duty to conform to the facts, they hardly lift their eyes from the conflict-ridden reality of Patagonia. In some respects, however, the population is showing a grasp of the facts and their historical dynamics.

On February 4, the leader of the Mapuche Ancestral Resistance (RAM), Facundo Jones Huala, publicly claimed responsibility for the fires in the province of Chubut, just south of El Bolsón. In mid-January 2025, a pro-mapuche group was expelled from the Los Alerces reserve (Chubut province) after four years of irregular occupation of the area. Facundo Jones Huala spoke of a project of “sabotage against the infrastructures of the capitalist system, transnationals, and landowners”. He called for an armed struggle. In retaliation, the RAM was cataloged as a terrorist organization by the National Ministry of Security. The following day, other fires were claimed by the same organization in the province of Chubut. North of El Bolsón, in El Foyel, other fires were caused by natural phenomena.

In all, at the start of 2025, a variety of fires spread from north to south—from Lanín Park (Neuquén province), Nahuel Huapi and El Bolsón (Río Negro province), Epuyén, Atilio Viglione and El Pedregoso (Chubut province)—have affected more than 25,000 hectares of forest and urbanized area.

A fifth-generation war in Patagonia

Two conceptual detours are necessary to grasp this panorama of conflict. Firstly, the fires are part of a wider pattern that cannot be reduced to a single isolated action. Secondly, the incidents are embedded in a situation of stealth conflict, present on national (and even regional) territory, inherited from historical disputes between Argentina and rival powers.

Patagonia is part of a national territory in multidimensional conflict with the United Kingdom following the Falklands War (or South Atlantic War). In addition to its proximity to Antarctica, Patagonia is located in a strategic area for maritime flows, namely the inter-oceanic passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

Following the 1982 military confrontation between the two powers, the conflict evolved into a more muted and sophisticated form of warfare, known as “fifth-generation warfare”.The latter involves a broader confrontation, deployed in all areas of society. It ceased to be a military conflict and took on the contours of domination exercised this time within Argentine society and elites. This offensive used political, cultural, cognitive, informational, and economic means.

The aim of this war has also evolved from its initial situation. It was no longer a question of militarily defeating an adversary and physically occupying the Falkland Islands and their maritime space. It's about maintaining a strategic advantage by subjugating Argentine society and penetrating its ruling class. The United Kingdom is probably the power that best masters this art of indirect and irregular warfare within the framework of the concept of political warfare, formalized by the North American George Kennan in 1948, precisely on the basis of the British experience. A new direction has been set in the Global Britain in a Competitive Age guidelines, formalized in 2020.

The four modalities of stealth warfare in Argentina

Four offensive axes have been developed from 1982 to the present day.

The promotion of a separatist and disruptive agenda, particularly in border areas.

The “neo-Mapuche” nuclei (RAM, CAM, WAM, RML), including some with UK-based organizations, are directly involved in this agenda in Patagonia. Chile, while fighting them, provides them with indirect support in order to avoid any head-on confrontation with its neighbor. Several Argentinian NGOs, including CELS and Amnesty International, with economic backing from London and Washington, are working in this direction.

CELS in Argentina remains a legal defender of RAM under the guise of protecting human rights and indigenous peoples. Their lawyer, Elisabeth Alcorta, is a member of the NGO and was Minister for Women during the government of the Peronist Alberto Fernández. This is also the case for the Aymara ethnic group in the north and the Washeks in the Chaco province. Bolivia and Chile are experiencing a similar context on their borders, with the case of the indigenous Aymara. This agenda, led by radicalized minorities, consists of vandalizing, reclaiming, and occupying territories, provoking security forces, fomenting insurrectionary processes, and generating social tensions. Arson attacks fuel this strategy.

The development of cultural and political engineering favorable to outside interests.

The modification of Argentina's historical narrative and ideological dependence on alternative models is another aspect of long-term cognitive action. Revisionism about Julio Argentino Roca's historical role in the integration of Patagonia (knos as the “Desert Campaign”), the narrative of the “genocide” of Indigenous peoples, and wokism are all elements of this. These are tangibly visible in the Patagonian landscape. They can be found in artisan markets, bookshops, and the works of local writers (Osvaldo Bayer, Ernesto Maggiori, etc.).

Other symbolic elements also play a part, such as the unbolting of statues of Julio Roca or other national figures who are branded with red-hot iron. They are also reflected in the scientific output of the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET). This agenda serves to deconstruct the national narrative, install a hijacked history, fragment opinions, and reshape local perceptions. The “Patagonian independence” slogan that circulated just after Javier Milei's election is a reminder that this political fragmentation is very close to the political surface, and has international backing.

Environmental conservation, promoted worldwide since the 1950s by Malthusianist and eugenicist networks.

Environmental conservation aims to curb the development of Patagonia and the resource exploitation zones that are conducive to the country's growth. As in the Brazilian Amazon, the limitation of development is functional to any project of external internationalization and territorial subordination, without the need to physically occupy the geographical space. Various environmental groups in Patagonia are supported by European foundations to encourage the occupation of land and the downward push of social demands.

Erosion of the defensive capacity of the army and society.

Since 1982, the date of the Falklands confrontation, Argentina's armed forces have been called into question as part of the fight against the “genocidal and repressive state” crystallized in the 1976-1983 dictatorship. The creation of a legal and cognitive framework, exacerbating the army's civil responsibility, was a weapon used by the ex-communist guerrillas and the United Kingdom, alongside their allies, to bring down the country's security apparatus.

The economic axis, essential to understanding Argentina's current geo-economic position, could be added to this. Each of these elements, taken separately, is likely to appear as an isolated dynamic, independent of the others. They may even seem legitimate in the eyes of society. This is precisely the effect sought by this stealthy, hidden war: to infiltrate society, to blend into its physiology, and acquire a status of naturalness. Basically, these interwoven axes form the framework of a fifth-generation war that remains invisible and unknown to society. It is being waged over the long term (30-40 years and more).

Such an agenda should not be a motive for authoritarian ambition or national neo-conservatism. Above all, it aims to lay the foundations for social pacification and a new commitment to objective reality. To turn one's back on this conflicting reality is, in the final analysis, to help one's rival achieve its offensive objectives.

It's worth noting that some points on this agenda have been slowed down. Offshore resource exploration has been authorized in the Atlantic maritime area, despite environmental and anti-extractivist lobbies. The request for sanctuary of the Lanin volcano, proposed as sacred territory for the Mapuche ethnic group, was rejected by the courts in 2022. Finally, some lands owned by the army were not transferred to groups with indigenous territorial claims.

Breaking out of excuses and dependencies

The strategic paralysis, still evident more than forty years after the initial conflict that marked a turning point in this offensive approach, is astonishing.

Verbally designating enemies or acting in a sectorial, linear fashion, as is frequently the practice of security institutions, only leads to mediocre, anachronistic results. Countering a war of this type should, in theory, be carried out on similar terrain. The key is to understand and model it, with the aim of containing it, in the knowledge that the adversary cannot be annihilated and that it requires integrated and sustained action over time.

The absence of kinetic warfare does not mean that there is no bellicose project. Argentina is indeed in a state of non-military warfare, fed by the new conflict landscape that has developed since the 1990s. The country is an international laboratory for political warfare. Its offensive modalities were updated in the UK Defence Doctrine in 2020.

Fires offer a potential subject for promoting collective intelligence on this conflictuality. They are recurrent. Public opinion suspects the double-edged nature of this conflict matrix. It is therefore up to citizens and authorities to rethink the level of responses in a Patagonia that has never ceased to be “rebellious”, as the late writer Osvaldo Bayer put it.