It has become one of the main debates in recent months. He compulsory military service could once again be a reality in some European countries due to the growing fear of entering war direct with the Russia of Vladimir Putin. France already has a pilot project, Germany and Serbia are considering resuming it and Denmark has decided to incorporate women. Even Sweden, pacifist, has its strategy Total Defense, by which anyone can be called up. Sixteen European territories (ten within the EU) have compulsory military service, 72 worldwide. But what about Spain?
Last March, the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, completely denied the possibility. When asked about the matter in a Senate committee, Robles pointed out that her department is not considering the return of the so-called ‘military’ “absolutely” and pointed out that in other countries they may have “more concern about their geographical location.”
“Spain has to have the capacity to defend itself”says Chema Gil, expert in security and terrorism, co-director of the International Security Observatory and coordinator of Emergency Operations in the Civil Protection and Emergencies Unit of San Javier. “We are faced with a very complicated international panorama and tense. Spain lives in self-absorption. Society and the media do not have a culture of security and defense implemented,” she adds.
COMPULSORY MILITARY SERVICE
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Compulsory military service in Spain, known as ‘mili’, began between the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century and ended in December 2001. Military service was rejected by a part of society and some of the citizens declared themselves objectors. of conscience and refused to do it, despite there being prison sentences for it. To regulate this situation, in 1984 the law on conscientious objection was approved. The end of the ‘military’ was one of the points included in the 1996 Majestic Pact between José MarÃa Aznar and the president of the Generalitat Jordi Pujol.
According to the expert, compulsory military service, eliminated in 2001 by the Government of José MarÃa Aznar“equal to everyone“and caused the acquisition of “a awareness of defense, security, homeland and the country”, although he recognizes that his elimination was normal because he opted for a “professionalized” army.
Something that confirms the Lieutenant General Francisco Gan Pampols. “Military service meant materializing the ccommitment of all citizens -masculine- in the national defense serving a period of time within the ranks of the Armed Forces,” he says.
In Gil’s words, there has been a shift in thinking with respect to the Armed Forces and “it is a political consequence.” The expert points out that, “due to complexities”, the reality of the Army is not talked about nor does it exist threat awareness real towards the democracy. “You have to speak clearly. Soldiers do not always go on a humanitarian mission,” she asserts. “We do not want to understand that Democracy must also be defended with weapons“he adds.
“We must have an Army that we use. The first mission that a powerful militia fulfills is neither more nor less than deterrence”
“Security and defense are State policies. The formulation of a national security strategy It is not a typical floral game to satisfy the gallery. We must precisely define our place in the world and the challenges, risks and threats that our vision entails. Also formulate the level of deterrence needed to contain the threats and carry them out,” says Gan Pampols, while lamenting that “the foreign and security policy does not address to all the disturbing elements that affect us”.
In these terms, a survey by the Gallup International Association a few days ago pointed out that 53% of Spaniards are not willing to fight for their country, while only 29% are in favor of doing so and the remaining 18% do not know or do not answer. Spain also ranks among the countries that most refuse to participate in a war.
A deterrent army
According to data from the Ministry of Defense, Spain currently has some 133,000 active troopsdistributed in an integral manner between the Air and Space Army, the Navy and the Army, which makes the country the last in number of military along with Poland and Algeria. At the head of the most powerful armies would be China, with more than two million soldiers, and India and USAwith around a million and a half.
Given these figures, Lieutenant Gan Pampols knows that we should proceed “to partial or general mobilization depending on needs” and emphasizes that “depending on the type of conflict that has to be faced, the professional army is clearly insufficient and requires an extraordinary contribution of troops that cannot be obtained solely from reserve elements.
“We must have an army that we do not use,” Gil highlights. “The first mission that a powerful militia fulfills is neither more nor less than deterrence“, he explains. According to the security expert, there are very few troops in Spain and very little money is used in Defense. “Our army is professional, with qualified soldiers, but it is not designed offensively. If a high-intensity war were declared, Spain would not endure“, he says and adds that “we can only face this with the support of the European Union and of the NATO“.
Thus, Lieutenant Gan Pampols adds that “based on what we have seen, nobody in Europe is in a position to face a high intensity conflict extended over time.” According to the soldier, “there is a lack of will, capacity and determination to assume all the efforts and sacrifices involved in entering a war economy and a society of scarcity and consumption control.”
Both Gil and Gan Pampols also point out the lack of security and defense education. For the defense expert, from the first educational stages. “In all advanced countries this is done in the primary states. The security concept changed many years ago and now it is more human, multifaceted, focused on health, physical, environmental, economic security…”, he specifies.
“There is no awareness of the need for securitythe complexity of the environment and the challenges, risks and threats that must be faced every day,” says the lieutenant general.
Focused on civil protection
Regarding the return of the ‘military’, Gil is committed to a model of military service similar to that of the countries of eastern Europe. “It is evident that it cannot be like 50 years ago. It should be limited in time and it must serve to obtain values ​​and knowledge. It can be presented as a campwhere you can meet people from other parts of the country,” he says.
Gan Pampols also indicates that “if the period of effective service is to nourish a modern army could not be less than two years in general and should be higher in the case of specific tactical positions”, which is why he believes that “a fine-tuned calculation of what force is neededhow it is sustained and what national capacities are going to suffer due to not having a qualified workforce in that period”.
I would never have gone to the military, I decided what I did and I don’t know anyone who would benefit from an imposition
In this sense, Diego, a 40-year-old Cantabrian who has been volunteer reservist until 2023advocates, like Gil, for “a short course, always voluntary, that can be fitted into a young person’s school calendar and that is more focused on civil protection, where they teach you how to act in an earthquake or fire situation; what to do if the building falls because a bomb is thrown at us; how to create a human chain…something similar to what the Military Emergency Unit (UNE)“.
Diego, who is a forestry technical engineer, is from the generation that no longer had to do military service in Spain (from 1984). Despite this, he has been collaborating with the Army every year since he was 18. “I always wanted to helpcollaborate in some way, and I also thought that I would be able to train me a lot in the Armed Forces,” he acknowledges. At the beginning, he was in the IT department in the Canary Islands, then he asked for a change to the Cartographic Institute of Madrid, where he collaborated three years in a row and, later, he went to Engineers, to Salamanca. , with “the people who install ports, who remove bombs…”.
Diego, who is also an environmental communicator, has decided this year to stop collaborating because he cannot combine it, since they can call you at any time of the year. “I would never have gone to the military, I decided mine and I don’t know any person who would benefit from an imposition. The fate of military service was decided by lottery and I don’t think it’s the best way to decide anything,” he says.
This volunteer reservist has also made use of all those facilities and barracks that served for the soldiers called to the ‘military’ at that time. “In the beginning, when I came home or spoke on the phone with my family, I always said that I was in a hangar, with hundreds of empty beds…“, he says. “I will always remember that.” “We cannot separate the possibility of war from Spain because it is Spain.”
The war capacity that Russia has demonstrated is far from being a real and immediate threat
“Slim” war probability
According to him article 30 of the Spanish Constitutionthe Spanish have the right and duty to defend Spain and will be able establish a civil service for the fulfillment of purposes of general interest. “Spain should be taking a complex look at a hyper-complex world where extraordinary tensions are being generated, not only in the surroundings of Russia and Ukraine or in the Middle East, in the Asia-Pacific axis which is where the world’s present is going to pivot and is pivoting,” says Gil.
The expert, “without being alarmist,” warns: “We will have war upon us the moment a single country in Europe or NATO has it. We cannot separate the possibility of war from Spain because it is Spain”.
Gan Pampols, for his part, believes that the probability to go to war “it is scarce”. “The war capabilities that Russia has demonstrated are far from being a real and immediate threat to NATO as a whole when has not been able to resolve a conflict high intensity with Ukraine in more than two years,” he says. “Another thing would be if nuclear concepts such as solidarity, unity of action or collective defense were called into question. That would open up a different scenario,” she concludes.
