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Abstract
The article analyses the Spanish military transformation. This process started in 2004 as a means to adapt the force structure, organization and capabilities of the Spanish military to meet present and future threats in compliance with NATO’s initiatives, thus ensuring the continuity of the equipment modernization, professionalization and the adjustment of the country’s defence architecture to the post-cold war environment. A decade later, although transformation is still a priority for the Ministry of Defence, limited political will, a lack of strategic guidance, poor resource management and the effects of the economic crisis are compromising its development. This article describes the Spanish military transformation and assesses its value in adapting the country’s armed forces to the current and prospective security environment.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the comments from the anonymous reviewers and the remarks from Professor Robert Geoffrey Jensen which not only contributed to improve this article, but also provided interesting insights that will be further analysed in future works.
Notes
1. Spain joined NATO in 1982 but it did not adhere its military structure until 1999.
2. Although the National Defence Directive (NDD) 1/2012 relates transformation to the provision of modern military capabilities, the adaptation of the forces to meet the current and emerging threats, the rationalization of the military organization and the maintenance of the deterrent; the documents of 2004 and 2008 or the statements by the defence authorities of the Socialist government seemed to understand this process as the continuation of the weapons modernization, the professionalization and integration of women to the armed forces, the adaptation of the defence structures to the democratic regime and the country’s integration to the collective security and defence organizations. For a general overview of the Spanish contemporary security policy, Maxwell (Citation1991) and Ortega (Citation2008).
3. In the 2002 Prague Summit, the allied heads of state and government accepted to initiate the NATO’s military transformation as means to develop the necessary tools to meet the “… new and grave threats and the deep challenges of the 21st security environment”. To that end, this process would be based on three main initiatives: the definition of a new command structure; a new force design that would lead to the development of the NATO Response Force and the creation of a new catalogue of military capabilities. An overview of this process can be found at NATO (Citation2003).
4. However, those objectives were reduced – as established in the Law 39/2007 on the Military Career – to 130,000 personnel: 50,000 officers and non-commissioned officers and 80,000–90,000 soldiers. However, the crisis has forced to cut those figures to 110,000–120,000 effectives (González Citation2013).
5. Speech by Prime Minister José María Aznar at Centro Superior de Estudios de la Defensa Nacional, Madrid, 20 October 2003.
6. Those characteristics are similar to the capability areas defined by NATO in the Defence Capabilities Initiative (1999), which also constitute the basis of the Prague Capabilities Commitment (2003)
7. It has to be remembered that the Combined Joint Task Force concept was adopted by NATO in the Brussels Summit (1994) to develop a force capable of facing a broad set of contingencies while easing the use of NATO’s resources and capabilities by the Western European Union in the framework of the European Security and Defence Initiative.
8. In NATO’s domain, a military capability combines Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership, Personnel, Facilities and Interoperability (NATO Citation2010). However, in Spain is defined as Materiel, Facilities, Human Resources, Training, Doctrine and Organization (Colom Piella Citation2011b).
9. The SDR linked the achievement of the new capabilities catalogue to the introduction of the main weapons programs in development: the Leopard IIE tank; the Pizarro Infantry Fighting Vehicle; the Integrated Campaign Artillery System towed 155 mm artillery, the NH-90 utility helicopter and the Tiger attack helicopter in the Army; the F-100 frigates, the S-80 submarines, the Maritime Action Vessel corvettes and the Strategic Projection Ship assault carrier in the Navy; and the EF-2000 fighter and the A-400M transport aircraft in the Air Force.
10. A by-product of the SDR was the Spanish Military Strategy, which employed its ideas to plan the force structure, capabilities catalogue, the framework of the joint action and the mains lines for the strategic and operational planning of the Chief of Defence (Defence Defence Staff Citation2003).
11. Those figures represent the base budget of the Ministry of Defence (MoD), being necessary to add up the pensions and the social welfare, the share of the Guardia Civil (a paramilitary unit under control of the Ministry of Interior), the R + D credits and other financial assistance falling under the Ministry of Industry, the Spanish contribution to NATO and the EU under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the cost of the international missions, the extension of the ordinary loans and the extraordinary loans to identify the final budget, which ranges between €11,000 and €16,000 M (1.1–1.4% of the GDP, still far away from the 2% proposed in the 2014 NATO Summit) depending on the source. This financial engineering allows to maintain the public defence budget below the 0.6% of the GDP because of the traditional pacifism of the Spanish population (Arteaga Citation2013b, Fonfría Citation2013). On the other hand, the Spanish defence budgets from 1998 to 2013 can be found at: http://www.defensa.gob.es/ladefensa/presupuestos.
12. In general terms, the Revolution in Business Affairs entailed the rationalization of acquisition processes, the flexibilization of programs management, the externalization of functions or the increase of the public--private partnerships as means to guarantee the viability of the transformation by optimizing the available resources, reducing overheads and fixed costs, cancelling obsolete programs and liberalizing funds for the procurement of modern systems for current and future conflicts (Lippitz et al. Citation2008).
13. Without integrating the effects of the economic crisis over the budget, those programs compromised the 80% of the available resources up to 2020 (Arteaga and Fojón Citation2007, pp. 383–385).
14. Although the major weapons programs have experienced overheads for an estimated amount of €7672 M, it is interesting to note that the NH-90 helicopter has nearly doubled the cost with a deviation of 95.5% (€1203 M) over the projected cost; the A-400M plane with a 59.1% (€2040 M) or the the EF-2000 with a 26.6% (€2463 M) (Secretary of Defence Citation2011). On the other hand, the first unit of the S-80 submarine will cost €2135 M, the projected price for four units (Hearing of Secretary of Defence in the Congress, 6 October 2014).
15. Between 1996 and 2008, while the modernization budget reached €11,000 M, the MoD signed contracts for €36,500 M. In addition, for financing the 19 so-called special weapon programs – the F-100 frigates, the S-80 submarines, the Maritime Action Vessels, the Juan Carlos I Strategic Projection Ship, the Combat Provisioning Vessel, the Leopard IIE tanks, the Tigre and NH-90 helicopters, the SIAC artillery system, the Pizarro IFV, the EF-2000 fighter, the A-400 transport, the IRIS-T and Taurus missiles and several systems for the Military Emergencies Unit – for an amount of €27,000 M, the Ministry of Industry paid in advance €15,000 M to the providers for developing those programs, while the MoD has reimbursed €8000 M for the systems already delivered. Provoked by the unsustainability of the programming system and led by the economic turndown, this situation has not only obliged to renegotiate and defer the payment of the programs, but also to approve extraordinary credits for paying those debts. A study on the impact of the economic crisis on the programming system can be found at Navazo (Citation2013).
16. Aimed primarily at replacing the existing weapons systems while providing a financial relief to the Spanish defence industry, the core of this new investment cycle is composed by the F-110 frigate (five vessels for €4000 and €1000 M for their life cycle); 8 × 8 personnel carriers (a first batch of 350–400 vehicles for €1000–1500 M) A-330 MRTT tankers (three planes for €800 M), Reaper or Super Heron drones (four planes and two ground stations for €200–300 M) and refinancing the S-80 submarine program (Hearing of Secretary of Defence in the Congress, 6 October 2014).
17. The structure outlined by this norm will be defined with more detail in the Instruction 40/2008 from the Chief of Defence for the organization of the Defence Staff.
18. While a comprehensive assessment of the structure, functions and initiatives of this transformation unit can be found at www.mde.es/Galerias/ooee/fichero/EMD_Unidad_UTRAFAS.pdf, a critical analysis of its initial initiatives can be seen in Marquina and Díaz (Citation2010).
19. From a formal standpoint, the framework established by the NDD is detailed in the DPD, which initiates the defence planning cycle and eases the definition and generation of the force, and the acquisition of the necessary means and resources to achieve the objectives outlined by the NDD (Colom Piella Citation2011b, pp. 834–836).
20. Although this document is classified, an abstract can be found in: www.defensa.gob.es/politica/seguridad-defensa/objetivos/#sub2.
21. More specifically, the document calls for increasing the jointness of the armed forces, the combined action with other national forces and the whole-of-government action by integrating civilian and military means. Conversely, it calls for adapting the defence to the economic scenario by providing a realistic budget based on the principles of economy, rationality and coherence, optimizing the available resources and priorizing the protection and security of forces.
22. Those programs – considered the basis of the military modernization by the Annex F of the SDR and representing twelve of the nineteen special weapons programs – are the ones identified in note 12.
23. In fact, in a hearing to the Defence Commission of the Congress (21 September 2011) aimed at explaining the impossibility to pay the €27,000 M of the compromised weapons programs, the Secretary of Defence Constantino Méndez stated that “… we should not buy systems that we will never use; for scenarios that do no exist and with a money we did not had before and now”.
24. In this sense, the purchase by urgency procedure of the LMV Lince and the MRAP RG-31Mk5 – motivated by the pressure of the public opinion because of obsolescence of the BMR 6 × 6 – was made at the margin of this process since they used the funds for supporting the international operations and without increasing flexibility (the purchase, reception, preparation and deployment of the RG-31 lasted 2 years) while obliterating the sustainability of these vehicles (Nieves Citation2010).
25. The same conclusions can be found at Arteaga (Citation2013a).
26. In a hearing at the Defence Commission of the Congress (24 May 2013), the Secretary of Defence Pedro Argüelles unveiled a proposal aimed at saving €3850 M by redefining some of the weapons programs. Conditioned by the international compromises, the military necessities and its impact over the defence industry, this plan calls for reducing the EF-2000 (from 87 to 73 while cancelling the Tranche 3B), selling 13 of the 27 ordered A-400M, reducing the NH-90 from 45 to 22 fully equipped, reducing the Tigre from 24 to 18 and no modernizing the existing HAP to the standard HAD, reducing the second series of the Pizarro from 190 to 117, selling an undefined number of Leopard IIE, delaying the second phase of the Maritime Action Vessel, reducing the S-80 submarine from 4 to 3 (because of structural problems in the original design) and scraping the Principe de Asturias aircraft carrier.
27. Even though NATO is developing cyber-defences, the disparity of economic and technological efforts between the allies – and the secrecy over the real cyber-capabilities of the countries – has forced NATO to assert that the development of cyber-forces is a national issue (NATO Citation2013). However, although Spain has recently created a Cyber-Defence Command in charge of the military systems, it is very possible that its underfunding (€2.3 M in 2014 and €2.5 M in 2015) and reluctance to hire civilian experts will preclude the development of advanced and compatible capabilities with its allies.
28. The Organic Law 1/1984 reformed the Organic Law 6/1980 to guarantee the end of the military autonomy and the political supremacy in the Spanish MoD after the coup d’état of 1981.
29. The organization and functional relations between both structures was consolidated with the approval of the Decree 787/2007 regulating the operational structure of the Armed Forces.
30. This condition was specifically established by the Socialist party as means to not repeat the Spanish participation in Iraq, unilaterally decided by Prime Minister Aznar with a strong popular opposition.
31. With the approval of this decree, the Emergency Military Unit – a force created by the agreement of the Council of Ministers (7 October 2005) to intervene in the national territory in disaster management – was integrated into the military structure as a joint standing force.
32. This decree not only streamlines the structure of the Armed forces in compliance with the NDD 1/2012, but also empowers the Chief of Defence and develops the structure and functions of the newly created Joint Special Operations Command and Joint Cybercommand.
33. The creation of this National Defence University was planned in the successive drafts of the Law on Military Career.
34. It was in his investiture speech (8 April 2008) when Prime Minister Zapatero declared the willingness of the government to develop a document stating the objectives, priorities, provisions and organizational and economic measures to guide the Spanish security and defence policy. (www.lamoncloa.gob.es/Presidente/Intervenciones/Sesionesparlamento/prsp20080408.htm).
35. Agreement of the Council of Ministers of 23 December 2009.
36. Examples can be found in Alejandre (Citation2011) or Mangas (Citation2011).
37. The standard vehicle for the operations in Afghanistan and Lebanon was the BMR, a 6 × 6 multi-purpose vehicle designed in the 70s but obsolete to the current standards. However, since the Socialist government presented those operations as peacekeeping and stabilization missions and never accepted that the Spanish forces were in the midst of a war or the threat level was high, it refused to accept that the BMR – because of the thin armour and the lack of inhibitors – was vulnerable, although all the attacks to the Spanish forces produced deaths. It was the pressure of the public opinion the factor that led the MoD to purchase new vehicles to replace the BMR (Cortés Citation2009).
38. Hearing of Secretary of Defence Pedro Argüelles in the Congress (6 October 2014).
39. That urgent debt was paid by the Popular government with an extraordinary credit of the same amount (Pardo Citation2012).
40. While the government presented this directive, the contents of the classified document Visión 2025 prepared by the Chief of Defence were leaked to the press. This paper allegedly stated that the military is economically unsustainable and lacks agility, adaptability, sustainability and the technological edge. To solve this situation, it calls for a reduction of 15,000 soldiers (10,000 in the Army and 5000 in the Navy and Air Force); 5000 civilian employees; the closure of bases; the dissolve of two Army brigades; and the development of advanced C4ISTAR systems and drones (González Citation2012). One can assume that those proposals have laid the basis of the Joint Rapid Reaction Force initiative which, launched in 2014, will guide the transformation of the Spanish Military (Calderón Citation2014).
41. Composed by a core of 15,000 soldiers plus 40,000 in 6-month rotations, this joint high-readiness force will guide the resource planning and military transformation efforts. 12,000 additional soldiers will be required for conducting the so-called permanent missions (cyber defence, maritime security, air defence, joint headquarters or collaboration with the civilian authorities). In addition to those 67,000 soldiers that will form the core of the Spanish military, there will be 53,000 more soldiers in support activities and 20,000 civilians. Although the Chief of Defence assumes that it will be possible to reduce the number of civilians working in the MoD – especially the ones working in administrative and support duties – it fails to address the necessity of counting with civilian experts in areas such as cybersecurity, R + D, Concept Development and Experimentation, acquisition, financial controllers or strategy in which the military lack specific expertise (Calderón Citation2014, González Citation2014a).
42. Excerpt from an interview to the Chief of Defence Admiral García Sánchez (Hernández Citation2012, p. 6). A similar idea can be found in the words of the Minister of Defence Pedro Morenés stating that “… the economic crisis is also a threat to our national security” (Muñiz Citation2012).
43. More specifically, from 2009 to 2013, the Chapter II of the defence budget – used to fund the running costs of the armed forces – was reduced from €1073 to €682.7 M (−36.4%).
44. The term “hollow army” was coined to define the situation the US military experienced during Jimmy Carter’s Administration, who allegedly complied to allow the country’s military deteriorate – with decreasing budgets, demoralizing troops and the military lacking basic equipment or funds to train – in the face of growing USSR capabilities. This concept has also been used by some Spanish authorities to explain the loss of military capabilities, the operational risks and the reduction of training because of the diminishing defence budgets, since only 10% of the military is available for fighting (González Citation2014a).
45. In fact, following the principles established by the NDD 1/2012, in February 2013 the MoD launched a Cyber-Defence Command with the mission to guarantee the freedom of access to the cyberspace, protect the military cyber domain, contribute to the security of civilian assets and capable of conducting offensive cyber-operations. Formally, this new command reached its Initial Operational Capability in September 2013 but, as explained in note 33, its underfunding will probably preclude it for developing advanced and compatible with NATO national cyber capabilities.
46. The last official polls (February 2015) show that the vote intention for the Popular Party has diminished from 44.62% (November 2011) to 27.3%, while Podemos – a new left wing populist party constituted before the 2014 European parliamentary elections – has a 23.9% and the Socialist Party a 22.2% of the share. In other words, although the Popular Party could still win the elections with relative majority, the Spanish political system will become more unstable (Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas Citation2015).
47. Arteaga (Citation2013a) and Navazo (Citation2013) or the debates of the seminar “La Defensa que viene” held in the Centro Superior de Estudios de la Defensa Nacional [“The Coming Defence” held in the High Centre for National Defence Studies] (Madrid, 15 October 2013).
48. It has to be remembered that the personnel costs account for 75% of the Spanish defence budget.
49. This norm plans to reduce the share of officers and non-commissioned officers in the armed forces until 2017 from 225 to 200 generals, 1136 to 1050 colonels, 3283 to 3276 lieutenant colonels and 880 other ranks. Bear in mind that in 2013 the Spanish military was composed by 78,000 soldiers and sailors and the legal maximum for 2014 and 2015 was 79,000 effectives.