As the Heritage Foundation’s Luke Coffey lamented on Tuesday, Spain will likely host a flotilla of Russian warships at its port in Ceuta later this week.
There are local media reports suggesting Spain will welcome Russian Navy vessels into its ports for refueling and resupplying as soon as Nov 9. The U.S. should make it crystal clear to Spain that this is unacceptable. https://t.co/W8eM6nR5OJ
— Luke Coffey (@LukeDCoffey) November 6, 2018
Coffey is right to be angry. Because were Spain to allow the Russian military to resupply on its soil, Madrid’s new left-wing government would be betraying its NATO obligations and helping promote atrocities. A Spanish enclave on the south side of the Strait of Gibraltar and the north coast of Morocco, Ceuta offers Russia a perfect location to repair its decrepit Mediterranean fleet and thus maintain regional pressure on NATO. But that Spain would even consider hosting the Russian military is an outrage.
First off, Russian forces in the Mediterranean are actively enabling President Bashar Assad’s bloodletting campaign in Syria (where more massacres are still coming). Assad’s rampage is the source of the Syrian refugee flows into Europe that have so destabilized the continent’s politics and given rise to nationalist movements.
Correspondingly, even putting American concerns aside, Spain should reject Russia’s request. Allowing the Russian navy into Ceuta would signal appeasement of Russian President Vladimir Putin, an aggressor who has already invaded one neighbor in Europe (and another in Asia) and continues to menace others. In the context of Russia’s recent nerve-agent adventure in Britain, its ongoing destabilization of Ukraine, and its broader aggression, there is absolutely no justification for Spain’s submission here.
Unless, of course, one considers that Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s socialist government prefers the easy course of its growing trade with Russia over the harder choice of alignment against aggression. But this isn’t just about money. It is deeply concerning, for example, that Spain is now acting as an enabler of Russian propaganda warfare.
Still, Trump has means of recalibrating Spain’s calculation. After all, Sanchez only believes he can get away with this appeasement because he assumes the U.S. won’t push back against it. And considering that Spain continues to spend a pathetic 0.93 percent of GDP on defense (far less than the 2 percent minimum it should be spending), Trump has ample reason to take action. What should he do? Threaten to close the U.S. naval base at Rota, Spain.
While that base carries strategic value to U.S. forces in Europe, it could easily be replaced with a new Mediterranean theater base (perhaps inside France’s Mediterranean naval and air facilities at Toulon and Hyeres). France is certainly more deserving of American investment. Under President Emmanuel Macron, France is now spending more than 2 percent of GDP on defense and provides critical intelligence support to America, especially in regards to Iran and counter-terrorism concerns in Africa.
Yes, Spain has the absolute sovereign right to entertain whichever military vessels it wishes. But the U.S. also has the right to respond to allies that prove themselves unreliable and assist in making the ongoing atrocities in Syria possible.
