Thirty years after "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher sent a task force to reclaim the Falkland Islands, Britain is trying to carve out a new global role despite harsh defence cuts, experts say.

For the country that once ruled the waves and governed an empire that spanned a third of the planet, the 1982 victory over Argentina came as a boost in Britain's military clout after a long stretch of decline.

Academics say that while Britain would be able to repel a second Falklands invasion, it must embrace a post-colonial defence policy that combines its status as an island nation with the need for collaboration.

"Far from being the last hurrah of a declining imperial power, the Falklands actually re-energised Britain's belief that it could still be a major military and diplomatic force," geopolitics professor Klaus Dodds told AFP.

"When you think about where Britain's gone after the Falklands -- Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya -- a lot of that has come off the back of the Falklands," said Dodds, of Royal Holloway University in London.

The Falklands unleashed a tide of patriotism in Britain, being seen as a reminder of centuries of naval dominance and an antidote to a string of military failures including the 1956 Suez Crisis.

It still exerts a powerful grip on the British imagination and shot back to the top of the political agenda in 2010 when Prime Minister David Cameron's coalition government announced huge cutbacks to the armed forces.

Cameron said at the time that Britain had "traditionally punched above its weight in the world and we should have no less ambition for our country in the decades to come".

But defence chiefs and lawmakers warned that Britain and its 14 overseas territories including the Falklands would be left vulnerable.

The cuts included scrapping Britain's lone aircraft carrier the HMS Ark Royal -- the fifth Royal Navy ship to bear the name since the first defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588 -- and the Harrier jump-jets that helped win the 1982 conflict.

Britain will now be without carriers until the first of two new Queen Elizabeth-class ships enters service in 2018. It will not actually have its US-built F-35 jets until 2020, and will carry helicopters until then.

In a fresh blow to British pride the government said that in the interim it would share a carrier belonging to France -- the country the Royal Navy defeated at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

Even Britain's submarine-based nuclear deterrent came under scrutiny.

Michael Clarke, director general of the Royal United Services Institute in London, said the Falklands in particular had become an "emotional touchstone for arguments about the level of defence cuts to British forces."

But the cuts obscure the fact that Britain still spends 200 million pounds ($317 million, 239 million euros) per year maintaining an air and sea bridge to the Falklands, some 8,000 miles (12,874 kilometres) away, plus a new military base equipped with Typhoon jet fighters.

Clarke said that Argentina is now 80 to 100 years behind Britain in terms of military technology, and Buenos Aires' best weapon may be in the court of international public opinion.

"Argentina benefits from a certain level of inchoate sympathy for its demands on islands that are closer to them than anyone else, and in opposition to a former imperial power that casts itself as a natural partner of the US throughout the world," Clarke said.

Naval historian Andrew Lambert said Britain was now repositioning itself after a decade fighting bloody land wars alongside US-led forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He said it was "very regrettable" that Britain had decided to take a "security holiday" with no aircraft carriers for almost a decade, but that fixing the economy was the "single most important defence measure".

"When the two carriers are in service Britain will once again be by a significant margin the second most important naval power after the United States," said Lambert, the Laughton professor of naval history at King's College London.

Britain's involvement in the Libya campaign last year showed it could still project military power, while it is the only country apart from the United States to operate patrols in the Persian Gulf for the last 30 years, he said.

But Lambert said Britain would always have to focus on naval assets, because it is surrounded by water.

"We grow about 35 percent of our food, we produce around 25 percent of our energy, and all of it comes by sea. If we can't use the sea, we will starve by the weekend and the lights will go out pretty quickly," Lambert said.