The unresolved Ceuta crisis has brought to light weaknesses that go beyond the critical circumstances of a mass entry and the settlement of thousands of people, with Morocco’s involvement to the degree that was determined. Its effects on the Ceutan population and on the rest of Spain, as well as the intense political controversy and the clashes, require examining some of the conditions on which Spanish national security rests. A national security that is in check both because of the ideas that underpin it and because of operating expectations that are not being met.
In August I analyzed the delay in activating the instruments of the National Security System. It is worth going deeper now into what, in my view, are the serious gaps that the crisis has exposed. I identify five, without claiming exhaustiveness or a ranking of importance, but with a look at the public decisions observed outside the bureaucracy. All of them affect the State’s capacity to protect its citizens; the combination of all of them explains why this crisis reveals serious shortcomings.
The first gap is conceptual. It has to do with the difficulty of grasping what national security means and how it relates to other public objectives. The debate about Ceuta has faced the understanding of it as a security crisis with its characterization as a humanitarian emergency. And since the definition of the problems shapes their solutions, this dichotomy has impoverished the diagnosis, has conditioned the debate from the outset and marked the deficiency in the response.
What is true is that its nature is twofold; or better, we are facing a national security crisis with humanitarian consequences that require attention in their own right. The protection of immigrants, the security of the Ceutan population, and the preservation of the State’s ability to act are all governmental responsibilities. Recognizing them together demands overcoming a debate in which each label seems to attach the holder of that label to an ideological position. Zoe Neiman’s analysis in RUSI precisely warned of the advantages coercive immigration yields when the affected State remains trapped in the discussion about the nature of what is happening.
“The protection of immigrants, the security of the Ceutans, and the preservation of the State’s ability to act are all governmental responsibilities”
The conceptual deficit therefore has practical consequences: it hinders the setting of priorities and, on the contrary, favors (bitter) discussions in which the protection objectives are confused with disagreements about the causes. If we debate the ultimate origin of everything, we will paralyze the State’s response and enter a spiral of social polarization that will worsen the consequences of the events. Determining the relevance of a crisis for national security should not hinder the security system itself.
The second gap is interparty. Between the parties there is a chasm that prevents sharing a basic interpretation of security problems and sustaining commitments that survive the immediate controversy. Elections have intensified this circumstance in itself, as the previous gap did.
Of course, government initiative is paramount here, although complicity could extend to both sides of the aisle. The Executive, as the primary responsible for directing this policy, has the duty to promote agreements and the conditions that permit ongoing State action. Its conduct, its decisions, and its omissions would deserve their own analysis, but here the substantive point is that this gap is weakening national security by exposing to third parties a critical vulnerability at the highest political level.
It is difficult to build durable commitments when admitting a public need is interpreted as a concession to the Government or when accepting an opposition proposal is perceived as a defeat. Each national crisis we have suffered in recent years has become a race to failure, allowing the convenience of having established recognizable patterns in the State’s conduct to slip away.
“It is difficult to build durable commitments when admitting a public need is interpreted as a concession to the Government or when accepting an opposition proposal is perceived as a defeat”
A democracy also requires that certain protection obligations and security priorities be sustained across legislative terms. The partisan fracture makes that continuity difficult and sends to the citizen that their security is subject to the whims of the current political conflict. A perception that erodes trust in institutions and, ultimately, undermines that Weberian legitimacy on which the state’s monopoly on violence as an instrument of the State rests.
The third gap is intra-governmental and also wears down that legitimacy. Controversies over prior warnings from the CNI or other bodies have exposed a dispute that affects the trust among the actors within the State itself. For this analysis, more than determining exactly what information each responsible party received, the important thing is to understand what institutional relationships that confrontation leaves in its wake.
Yes, trust between bureaucracies also constitutes a security resource. It is built when an agency can communicate a warning, express an uncertainty, or acknowledge a limitation without anticipating that this information will be used to discredit it. Leaks do terrible damage in this sense, because they indicate that someone is either protecting themselves or attacking—without even entering the door that opens to malicious third parties. That is why trust is undermined when relationships are dominated by suspicion and the need to protect one’s own position.
That deterioration can persist after the crisis. If those responsible, at whatever level, take note of how their warnings and decisions were treated, they will have every incentive to act with extreme caution, to avoid compromising judgments, or to document every action. In the end, defending one’s own organization ends up shifting the objective of the common good.
“If those responsible, at whatever level, take note of how their warnings and decisions were treated, they will have every incentive to act with extreme caution”
Logically, there is also the risk of intelligence becoming politicized. Democratic governance requires the Government to set priorities and make decisions, leaving the services to preserve their professional judgment. Selecting assessments for partisan usefulness or for use in internal disputes compromises that relationship. The consequence touches both the quality of the advice and, again, the credibility of institutions. Thus, restoring lost trust, which has become systemic distrust, requires far more time than resolving the current public disagreement.
The fourth gap lies in the Europeanization of our security. Having allies increases Spain’s relative power: it expands available resources, improves its negotiating position, and allows pursuing objectives that would be harder to sustain alone. Building those supports is part of the national security policy.
In Europe’s response to Ceuta there were expressions of solidarity, but also reproaches and divergences among partners. Spanish policy needs to evaluate its decisions by their diplomatic effects and not by what is proclaimed. Being right is a poor principle of foreign policy; on the contrary, formulating a legitimate claim requires the capacity to influence third parties and improve our position. That is its strategic sense, not preaching truths. This principle implies understanding what worries the partners, anticipating their reactions, and building reciprocal relationships before a crisis makes it necessary to resort to them. Positions on defense or migration can generate second- and third-order effects that play out over time. Any long-term view would have taken them into account. Preventing and absorbing them is a duty of foreign action. The rest are traps for the lone wolf for internal consumption.
The fifth gap has to do with Spain’s strategic culture. We are witnessing a collision of ideas around the “mattress of interests,” economic and commercial cooperation as avenues of international relations. All of that mental framework now faces the assertiveness —to use gentle terms— of certain actors in recent years’ international politics: belligerence, red lines tested, and the usurpation of territories by force. Choose your conflict.
It would seem our elites have different premises, other attitudes and different perceptions, which do not align with the new strategic framework in which we operate. Strategic culture changes slowly over time, but perhaps the times demand a faster shift in these positions. We are interpreting each tension episode as a passing anomaly, underestimating the continuity of certain harmful conduct for the international order that we claim to want to sustain. Thus, this interpretation of international relations undermines the options available for State action and, ultimately, a peaceful context.
“We are interpreting each tension episode as a passing anomaly, underestimating the continuity of certain harmful conduct for the international order we claim to want to sustain”
These five gaps affect different foundations of national security: a shared understanding of public responsibilities, political continuity, institutional and citizen trust, allied support, and interpretation of the surrounding environment. Their depth explains why they reappear in crises of different natures; as the meme goes, they seem not to be a flaw but a feature of the system. Ceuta allows us to recognize these fractures. The question is how long the State can continue to assume they constitute a normal condition of its security.
