Institutional weakness with unpatriotic separatist governments and an unarmed army is the ideal situation for the invasion of Morocco
Risk is the condition in which the probability of some undesired event happening is positive; in other words, it might occur. Large firms have a risk policy and take measures that exclude major risks. A serious country has plans for foreseeable financial crises, epidemics, natural disasters and external attacks.
Governing a country of our size requires the management capacity that the present government lacks. Reuniting separatist, independent and communist seats involves so many mortgages that it is unfeasible to account for management capacity with the democratic legitimacy that it has.
According to Acemoglu, countries that operate properly do so because they have erected an institutional building on respect for technical aptitudes, capacity and proven talent. Thus most citizens trust its institutions. A government that lives for propaganda cannot expect the population to trust it, unless it believes that all citizens are ignorant. The education we endure produces many ignorant people, but quite a few are not.
Today’s government is irresponsible. Its pandemic management proves its incapacity by the false number of victims, making the most of the state of alarm to pass laws without discussing them, which imply a totalitarian overtone that is not well accepted in Europe. The patronage policy of subsidising instead of promoting economic recovery by given firms direct aid goes against the way of a free world. Propaganda and lies do not suffice because, as Pascal said, when one does not act as one thinks, one ends up thinking how one acts, and no-one trusts.
How can a government be trusted if it systematically lies, deteriorates State leadership, contemplates the division of its own country, hides thousands of deaths? No objective person can trust such a government. The population would not support it if there were external threats.
Situations when a country suffers institutional weakness and patriotism is attacked are obviously the worst for being defended from external attacks. In 1975, with the typical weakness of the transition in Spain at that time, Hassan II of Morocco took advantage of our weakness to appropriate Sahara with the Green March. Will this be repeated with Ceuta, Melilla or the Canaries?
Today’s institutional situation is much worse than in 1975, not only because of the government’s incompetence, but also because it absolutely lacks patriotism. The fearful senselessness of having a government that repels patriotism, needs pro-independence parties, is an extremely vulnerable situation. If we also bear in mind diminishing military budgets, I do not think that we are in material or moral conditions to defend ourselves from a convinced aggressor country.
If this were not enough, encouraging in important parts of Spain for decades separatist propaganda, anti-Spanish indoctrination in the Basque and Catalan communities, the disappearance of feeling devoted to one’s country, patriotism, does anyone believe there would be enough patriotic Spaniards willing to defend their country from external threats?
Institutional mistrust deteriorates citizens’ moral. Rulers’ lies mean that citizens feel no devotion for their nation. Even many civil servants lack it. Public vocation is scarce and careless, and the public service sense is more so.
What moral concern about being Spanish is left? Without it, how can a country be defended?
It is doubtful that NATO will inform or help to defend a country with a communist government that no-one respects in the EU because a government that does not respect its country’s unity cannot expect anyone to come and help it to defend what it has shown it does not love.
Spanish vulnerability is extreme and an external claim to some national non-continental territories has not disappeared. Not many very few important things occur without the USA’s blessing; Zapatero’s anti-American claims of the Puebla group only fuelled fire. This former president defended narcodictators and ruined Spain’s image. The same government attacking the monarchy, spending all public funds, has led to maximum weakness. We are cannon fodder. Let’s hope there will be no more alarms due to external attacks.