There are several questions on the table, many do not have easy answers and some are not easy to formulate. Let’s try to put order in this confusing panorama of security and defense, but first, certain preliminary questions. One, Russian aggression against Ukraine is not the only key to clarifying all these questions. Two, the thing is not about creating a European army from today to tomorrow. And if I may, three, Minister Margarita Robles makes a great effort (and has merit) to explain to the media that the issue is not about returning to mandatory military service.
Russia is in the hands of a 21st century dictator, who uses 20th century weapons to conduct a war with 19th century schemes. With little imagination, he has formulated the Aznarian thesis, according to which the recent massacre in Moscow, well, okay, was the work of Islamists from Central Asia, but its inspiration could be those of the death of John Kennedy in Dallas and Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo.
And geopolitics, derived from geography and violence, does not help. For example, in recent years, compulsory military service has been reestablished, even for women, in Finland and the Scandinavian and Baltic countries. What do they have in common? The proximity to Russia, which has given a decisive incentive to societies that have accepted the challenge without blinking. Two of them also entering NATO. This has to do with some wars of the 20th century and a certain memory of the Soviet Union. It is worth remembering that Putin said that his disappearance was the greatest misfortune of the 20th century and he still thinks so.
On the other hand, the problem for Spain and for the Minister of Defense is that public opinion does not want to hear about reestablishing the military; Nearly 60% are totally against increasing defense spending (1.2% of GDP, second from bottom on NATO’s list) and there is no social awareness to support the need to strengthen defense spending with appropriate public policies. collective security at national, European and global level. Here people prefer to invoke “peace” in the papal way (“Ukraine should have the courage to raise the white flag”).
But, it could be argued that the NATO country that spends the most on defense (3.55% of GDP) is not the United States, it is Greece, due to an old dispute it has had with Turkey (1.3% of GDP) since several centuries or millennia ago, depending on how you look at it.
If we analyze the strategic panorama rigorously (the argument is valid for Spain or any other country in the Alliance), the issue is not about returning to mandatory military service, or not mainly. The issue is for governments, experts and (serious) media to deepen their understanding of three things: in the case of Spain, what differences there are between factors of uncertainty, threats and risks. They are three not equal components of that international environment (the political system) that governments perceive as potentially (or directly) dangerous. And it also proposes how to address the issue while promoting appropriate public policies, international alliances and essential international organizations, without forgetting the education of public opinion with great efforts (and in Spain, at least, without expecting great results in the short term). term).
Almost all the countries around us have been providing themselves with official documents called, more or less, “National Security Strategy” and which have quite similar structures. For Spain, for example, Gibraltar or Ceuta and Melilla, are they risks or threats? Or nothing at all? We (ordinary citizens) can move on to something else, governments cannot. Are migratory flows, at the scale of the entire Mediterranean basin, risks or threats? Is the European Union going to create a European army?
About thirty years ago, a very ambitious (and very expensive) project was launched to build the Eurofighter, the European combat fighter. How many countries have replaced their own fighter aircraft with that European aircraft? Years ago, the so-called battle groups of the European Union were created, in theory for rapid deployment in very urgent tactical situations. There are many on paper, in practice, how many times they have been deployed and where. As far as I know, never.
The thing is simple: what is the difference between risk and threat? A threat is a risk with credible intent. Each government prefers to manage its reflection, although the final decision can be coordinated or syndicated with others. It is very complex for any government to manage insecurity.
