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Spain EXTERNAL SECURITY PERCEPTIONS AND POLICIES
Not having faced any serious threat to its territorial
integrity for more than 150 years, Spain has tended to
regard
itself as safely removed from conflicts that could arise
on the
continent of Europe. Spain's remoteness and the physical
barriers
to mounting a successful attack on its soil appear to
justify
this view. To the north, the Cordillera Cantabrica and the
Pyrenees form natural defenses against invasion
(see
fig. 5).
Attacks from the sea, whether from the Atlantic or the
Mediterranean coasts, also would confront rugged terrain.
Only by
invading from the west, through Portugal, could a hostile
army
find relatively level terrain, permitting maneuver. The
distance
between central Spain and the nearest Warsaw Pact
airfields is
nearly 2,000 kilometers. Hostile aircraft with the
necessary
range would need to survive NATO air defenses over Italy
and the
Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) in order to
attack
Spanish targets.
Spain's success in maintaining a status of
nonbelligerency in
both World War I and World War II has helped to contribute
to its
sense of invulnerability. In spite of the strongly
anticommunist
and anti-Soviet attitude among the Spanish military, there
has
been little sense of an immediate security threat from the
Soviet
Union. The reinforcement of the Soviet naval squadron in
the
Mediterranean Sea, with an aircraft carrier in 1979, and
the
increased number of Soviet submarines passing through the
Strait
of Gibraltar have modified this perception to some degree,
however, in the late 1980s. Spanish naval planners have
been
obliged to take account of this new potential risk to the
strait
and to the Spanish Mediterranean islands and coast.
The conclusion of the 1953 Pact of Madrid with the
United
States altered Spain's traditional neutrality, making its
territory a factor in the defense of the West. The Spanish
military leadership began to recognize that Spain had
acquired
strategic importance as a result of the presence of United
States
bases and that it had become a potential target in the
event of
conflict between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. If the West
suffered a
military setback, particularly on NATO's vulnerable
southern
flank, Spain's security and territorial integrity would be
directly threatened.
Spain's adherence to NATO in 1982 necessitated the
recasting
of Spain's traditional strategic doctrine to accept the
concept
of collective security in partnership with other nations
of the
West. The public's endorsement of Spanish membership in
NATO, in
a 1986 referendum, demonstrated recognition that, under
the
conditions of modern warfare, a threat to Central Europe
represented a threat to Spain as well. Nevertheless, in
the
debate over the advantages of Spanish membership,
opponents
pointed out that Spain would face a higher level of risk,
including exposure to bombardment from the air and nuclear
attack.
Prior to accepting NATO commitments, much of Spain's
strategic planning had been dominated by the potential
threat
from North Africa. The immediate objects of any
belligerency had
been expected to be the port enclaves of Ceuta and
Melilla.
Surrounded on the landward side by Moroccan territory and
claimed
by Morocco, these remnants of Spain's protectorate century
were
vulnerable both economically and militarily. Both were
fortified
towns defended by relatively strong garrisons. Since the
fifteenth century, they had formed a line of defense
against the
Islamic threat to the Iberian Peninsula. In modern times,
however, their strategic importance was that, together
with
Gibraltar, they ensured that control of the strait linking
the
western Mediterranean with the Atlantic was in Western
hands.
If it had chosen to do so, Morocco probably could have
imposed a damaging economic blockade on the two cities.
Observers
regarded the likelihood of such an action as small,
however,
because of the losses that would be inflicted on people
living in
adjacent Moroccan areas dependent on sales of their
products and
on smuggling operations in the enclaves. Militarily,
Morocco
probably would not have been strong enough to drive the
Spanish
out, and it had generally avoided actions that would
inflame the
issue. The success of the Spanish military in cultivating
their
Moroccan counterparts had also helped to keep tensions at
a
minimum. Nevertheless, for a time the short-lived 1984
treaty of
union between Libya and Morocco created anxiety in Spain
because
the military potential of the two countries combined with
the
belligerency of the Libyan ruler, Muammar al Qadhafi,
accentuated
its sense of vulnerability.
A number of Spanish observers criticized the failure of
the
Spanish government to secure recognition from NATO of
Ceuta and
Melilla as falling within the geographical sphere of the
treaty,
thereby requiring a response from the alliance if they
were
attacked. Others concluded that Spain's NATO ties would,
at a
minimum, act as a brake against action by Morocco because
Spain
could avail itself of the consultative provisions of the
treaty
if it regarded its territorial integrity, political
independence,
or security as coming under threat. Realistically,
however, other
NATO countries viewed the enclaves as remnants of the
European
colonial past in Africa, and they could not be counted on
for
assistance.
Data as of December 1988
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