Editorial: Better to fight in print than in person

There have been those who have mocked the President of Argentina, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, for publishing an open letter in British newspapers demanding that Britain hand over the Falkland Islands. Eyebrows have been raised about the contents – "delusional and insulting" and "stuffed full of falsehoods", according to some critics.

But newspaper ads are far preferable to the alternative – of which the world was reminded last month when 30-year-old papers were released revealing the reaction of the then British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, to the 1982 Argentine invasion of the islands. She had not believed the country's military junta would be "so stupid" as to squander the lives of young soldiers on such a dispute.

Diplomacy is war by other means. Newspaper ads can be so, too. No one dies. And it is good for our advertising budgets.