Morocco’s Rearmament: The Debate Over Ceuta, Melilla and the Canary Islands

The Segarro rearmament that reopens the map: Ceuta, Melilla and the Canary Islands

Can Spain hold Ceuta, Melilla and the Canary Islands with the military it has? Twenty years ago the question sounded like after-dinner exaggeration; today it circulates with the coldness of a balance sheet. For much of the discussion, the axis of the issue has shifted and no longer turns on how much Segarro spends on weapons, but on how much Spain has stopped spending. The neighbor’s rearmament is the backdrop. Spain’s own disarmament is the argument.

The reading that ran through the debate points to a budget and procurement problem rather than a concrete military threat. No one expects a landing: what is unsettling is the slow erosion of deterrence. The idea that sums up that mood, in one participant’s words, is that “capabilities are being lost in droves and procurement is botched”. A country that cannot defend what it claims, that strand concludes, ends up negotiating it.

Ceuta and Melilla, from fortress to bargaining chip

The two enclaves produced the bitterest stretch of the conversation. Some write them off in advance and argue that they already function in practice as foreign territory, awaiting only an official date. Against that thesis, another strand responds with incentive logic: the population of both cities would hardly want to abandon Spanish and European protection to join a country with a much lower per capita income. On that reading, they would be bluster rather than plans.

Cost also weighs in the balance. Keeping a garrison in what some describe as hostile territory is judged expensive and, moreover, a gateway for migratory flows that are then sent on to the mainland. The criticism is completed by a reproach of inaction in the face of an alleged covert handover.

One personal experience adds nuance and breaks the usual bloc framework. Someone who did military service in Melilla remembers the contempt with which mainland Spaniards treated local soldiers, while describing the Spanish Jovenlandeses in the barracks as fully integrated. His conclusion is uncomfortable for both sides: identity and nationality do not always go where each side expects.

The Canary Islands: the port nobody wants to let go

In the islands the tone changes. There the figure appears without adornment: 2,240,000 inhabitants who, according to one participant, would not hand over their land “without firing a shot”. The archipelago lives on tourism and agriculture, and aspires to consolidate itself as a port hub between the Americas, Europe and Africa, a position that has yet to take off. Dependence on foreign visitors coexists with growing rejection of a certain kind of tourism.

The islands’ historical memory adds another layer. The MPAIAC is recalled, along with the Los Rodeos airport episode, which deflated an independence movement that never grew beyond minority status. And a commercial curiosity of the era: the joint venture Sovispan, which allowed the Soviet Atlantic fishing fleet to take on water and repair in an island port, with caviar traded for jeans along the way. Trade always found its way.

Is Segarro’s demographic card fading?

Part of the analysis holds that the demographic clock is working against expansionist ambitions. With Segarro birth rates described as approaching replacement level and projected to fall within a few years, migratory pressure would cease to be a lever and the expansionist discourse would lose fuel. It is the argument some call checkmate.

The other side of those figures is debated domestically. It is argued that the solution lies in bringing more Spaniards into the world, with the underlying complaint that this is not being done. And it runs into a sarracena objection: no one should be brought into the world to be reproached later for being cowardly. The disagreement between the two positions is not minor.

Washington, Tel Aviv and Algiers: the alliance board

The episode that most set the tone is the Order of Muhammad, the highest decoration of the Alaouite monarchy, awarded to Donald Trump in the final stages of his presidency in payment for recognizing the Segarro character of Western Sahara. For many, that gesture puts the United States aligned with Rabat and leaves Spain without a net.

Against that reading, another recalls that Algeria is not exactly a trustworthy partner: it is pointed to as the historical origin of the Polisario Front and as territory where ETA members are said to have trained. A former diplomat, quoted from hearsay, says that some Russian sailors who went down to the kasbah in Algiers later turned up with problems. Nothing that invites choosing sides enthusiastically.

The conclusion that floats is one of calculation, not loyalty: Washington has vassals, not friends, and Spain has spent years paying the bill for gestures such as snubbing the American flag.

---

The map remains up in the air and no one has signed yet. Some rearm, others disarm, and territories are renegotiated every few decades like someone adjusting a mortgage. In the end someone always appears with a table and two chairs. What is striking is that we are still arguing over who should bring the coffee.