Why is Spain a vital partner for NATO?

BarcelonaThree years after the historic NATO summit in Madrid –with Dinner at the Prado Museum included–, Spain's military spending remains below the 2% of GDP agreed upon in 2014 and reiterated as a target throughout Sánchez's term. However, despite criticism of military spending from its partners, especially since Trump's return to the White House, the Spanish government's commitment to the Atlantic Alliance has been increasing in recent years, and its geography makes the state a necessary partner for NATO.

"Spain is a security provider for NATO, not a consumer," says Domènec Ruiz, senior researcher and CIDOB representative in Brussels. Its cooperation in missions abroad exceeds its security needs, and this positive balance explains why it is "a reliable partner and one of the most active countries in NATO missions," says Ruiz.

This relationship of mutual interest is marked, above all, by geography. "Spain is a logistical platform for operations in Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Middle East," Ruiz continues. The United States' interest in this step at the intersection of two continents dates back more than seventy years, when they signed the 1953 Pact of Madrid, which broke the dictatorship's isolation in exchange for the use of the Rota naval base, at the Atlantic gateway to the Strait of Gibraltar. The agreement has required periodic renewals, currently under the umbrella of NATO, but the United States' interest in maintaining the base did not diminish even at the height of tensions with Morocco in 2020, when King Mohammed VI offered Trump to move Rota to his country.

Far from closing the base and accepting the proposal in a climate of rapprochement between the US and Morocco recognition of Western SaharaRota has continued its work within the framework of NATO. The Spanish government is preparing its expansion with a budget of 300 million euros over the next eight years, and since 2010, the Alliance has also developed an anti-missile shield with American AEGIS destroyers.

But there are more points of interest on Spanish territory. The Morón shared-use air base – in which the United States Air Force has also participated since 1953 – has provided material support that covers key operations of the US military. The most recent was less than a week ago, when it hosted US tanker aircraft that participated in the attacks on nuclear infrastructure in Iran.

"NATO is a tool led by the United States to maintain a military presence in the North Atlantic, and Spain's location in the southern North Atlantic is essential for the US," explains Jordi Calvo, coordinator and researcher at the Delàs Center. A participation that, according to Calvo, "even offers too much from the perspective of citizen security," given the "volatility of Trump's United States."

Some NATO bases are less prominent, but maintain constant operations.

Southern flank: threats of the future?

In recent years, NATO has also begun to look closely at the southern Mediterranean. "The Sahel is a hotbed of instability, with coups d'état in several countries and a negative role for Russia, with the successor to the Wagner group, Africa Corps, financed by the Kremlin," explains Domènec Ruiz.

The Alliance appears to be starting to take firm steps in this direction. At the last NATO summit in Washington last year, the Alliance approved the so-called Southern Neighborhood Action Plan, which rewards the accelerator by shaping its own strategy in a region that had been forgotten until then. No decisions have yet been made, but there is speculation that the Alliance could deploy troops on training missions. According to Ruiz, this further positions Spain as a necessary partner, given the "very good relations with African and Arab countries that do not have other member states."

For Jordi Calvo, in fact, the Spanish government's urgency in investing in the southern flank is "conditioned by the issue of Ceuta and Melilla," which are excluded from the North Atlantic Treaty, but also by France's "historical interests" in the region. For Ruiz, Russian penetration in the Sahel demonstrates that the threat "is not limited to Europe's eastern flank."

Beyond the southern flank, the presence of US bases, and geography, Spain is the eighth-largest arms exporter worldwide, but also a major importer of US material and technology. This is another layer in the relationship of mutual dependence between the Atlantic Alliance and the State, which has now faltered in the wake of Pedro Sánchez's refusal to succumb to Donald Trump's demands to increase military spending to 5% of all allies.