The Armed Forces and the Society in a Spain in crisis: Cospedal’s policy of security and defense (2016-2018)

Resumen

In this paper we will analyze the security and defense policy developed by the new andinexperienced Minister of Defense, María Dolores de Cospedal, between 2016 and 2018, that is,in the last two years of the seven-year period of the government of the conservative leaderMariano Rajoy. One of the topics we will study is the relationship between Spain and the rest ofthe NATO members, which, like the European Union, was (and has been) seriously affected by theelection of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, in the elections of 2016. Hequestioned the Allied defense and, in addition, ostensibly demanded of the rest of allies (inparticular, Germany, but also Spain) a minimum of 2% of GDP in military inversions.As we have just pointed out, Trump’s election also had a more than remarkable impact on theEuropean Union, which, as a result, began to take firmer steps towards a true Europe of defense.Precisely, one of the elements that a priori draws attention in Cospedal’s policy of security anddefense was its clear Europeanism, perfectly compatible with the Spanish-centric nationalismcharacteristic of the time when Rajoy was in the government.Another of the key issues of the security and defense policy throughout the story of the Spanishdemocracy is the obscurantist military spending. Associated with this, another aspect of requiredanalysis will be the stock and industrial policy, also strongly interlinked, so much so that one canperfectly speak of a military-industrial mini-complex in Spain, with an added element of politicsand even of trade unions. From the perspective of a post-militarist theory, it is clear that therearmament policies are framed within the "culture of armament".During the two years Cospedal was in charge, there were still incidents that could be framedwithin the aforementioned post-militarism or even a neo-praetorianism originated by GeneralMena and his pre-coup in January 2006. However, we will also find episodes that undoubtedlyhave more to do with the preservation of an anachronistic and unconstitutional military-Catholicism within the Armed Forces than with anything else.However, the great event at the end of Rajoy’s seven-year government of Rajoy was undoubtedlythe so-called Catalan independence referendum on October 1, 2017 and the events that tookplace before and afterwards, which are part of the process (in Catalan, "procés") of Catalanindependence. Contrary to what could have been predicted, neo- praetorianism was practicallyabsent during the weeks (and even months) before and after October 1. More than anintervention of the military in politics, what happened was, let us be ironic, an intervention ofpoliticians in the militia. Finally, from the perspective of national security, one of the most strikingaspects of the "process" was Russia’s intense intervention in it.