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Spain is celebrating the 40th anniversary of its entry into NATO, a decision that the Spanish citizenry made in a referendum and that the passing of time has shown to be useful and advantageous for our country. To maintain that NATO is not in a process of internal refounding after years of crisis that have blurred its meaning would be false. And from this perspective, the fact that Spain is the place where NATO is called to redefine its new course is satisfactory for our image abroad. The same must be said of the meeting held yesterday in La Moncloa by the US president, Joe Biden, and Pedro Sánchez. If more than a year ago the 28-second meeting that both had in a corridor was discouraging for our international prestige, now we can only congratulate the fact that, even as host, Biden dedicated an hour to addressing the concerns of Spain in La Moncloa .
The turn undertaken towards the United States, despite the frontal opposition of members of the Executive, who have even come to manifest themselves calling NATO a “criminal organization”, is finally a successful rectification. Those members of the Executive, such as the Secretary of State and leader of the PCE, Enrique Santiago, will know why they continue in ministries in which they do not believe, or why they continue without resigning assuming an international policy that they despise.
The objective of this NATO summit is to relaunch itself, to re-adopt a primitive sense of defense of its States because the invasion of Ukraine has changed everything in world geostrategy. The decision to send more than 300,000 soldiers to different countries neighboring Russia is a necessity. Not only Putin, but also Medvedev or Lavrov have bragged about the Russian nuclear threat, and NATO needs to make urgent political decisions and tactical moves. This preventive cordon is essential to guarantee security against possible aggression from Russia. It is also relevant, and correct, to place China in NATO’s focus, a huge world power that has been profiled in the face of Russia’s attack on Ukraine for more than four months, and that little by little has been de facto colonizing African countries. The ‘look to the South’ that is going to be debated at this summit focuses precisely on that, on the observance of the Sahel and the prevention of jihadist terrorism, and on the instability in the Maghreb after the worsening of the eternal crisis between Morocco and Algeria and its incidence in Spain. And logically, throughout Europe. It is no coincidence that Biden has anticipated an increase in the number of destroyers at the Rota base.
However, no express mention of Ceuta and Melilla is planned for the summit, which will continue not to appear in the logbook of NATO’s defensive strategy for the next ten years. The new strategic concept prescribes the protection of the territorial integrity of each one of the States, and the Government considers this commitment sufficient because evidently the two autonomous cities bordering Morocco are Spanish territory. But the truth is it does not seem that there will be a conclusive wink towards Spain. Similarly, the Government must make a firm commitment to invest in Defense and double the 1.01 percent of GDP that goes to military spending. It is not a question of ideology, but of helping to contain a threat that Russia has reactivated against the West. It is also satisfactory that the summit has overcome the stumbling block of Turkey’s outright opposition to the immediate accession of Sweden and Finland. Vetoes like that would only weaken the Atlantic organization rather than strengthen it.
www.abc.es
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism