"...have some quite useful ground-based radar."
On unmanned sites subject to known limitations. And, given how often hardware limitations on the older now superceded platforms in the 80's and 90's used to leave holes, the lack of a permanently assigned Area Air Defence DDG potentially exacerbates the situation.
The Woodward scenario has got nothing to do with how capable Typhoon is as an air superiority asset. You dont have to get into a tangle with one or more, you just have to keep them occupied and out of the way at the edges of the FIPZ for long enough to prosecute the capture of the airfield.
This then, becomes ultimately much less about individual platform capabilities and far more to do with numbers available and multi-layered AD including SHORAD, accounting for as many of the possible threat scenarios. If all your assets are away from the nest providing QRA, what are you protecting the homeplate with? Look how many times in the 80's a relatively low number of Tu95's buzzing about in the North Atlantic had our Q resources stretched. More times than I care to remember.
As it is at the moment, we are, to my mind, relying too heavily on Intel to give us sufficient warning of attack which would allow us to make best attempts to effect a timely reinforcement.
Given how the cracks appear to be showing with Libya and Afghan, all it would take would be an increase in legimate Argentine/ joint South American exercise activity in the region and the potential for FIPZ incursions.
I dont think anything will happen for at least a couple of years. All the noise that Kirchner is coming out with now is just that. Noise for domestic consumption. If they are going to go for it, she and/or her successor will wait until we have started making deep cuts to muscle rather than trimming off fat and when the procurement lines, if there are any are just too damned long to be able to react. And then, they will go for it.
An absolute minimum of 2 to 3 years wait, but certainly before the QE carrier comes onstream. I reckon between 2015 and 2018, they're likely to go for it. The UN will do nothing, as it always does, Britain does not have the diplomatic support in South America or even in the Whitehouse any more and certainly will not have the capability to launch a CORPORATE type venture.
We're going down a path where we will barely be able to protect our own shores, let alone anyone elses.