The nuclear arsenal in Spain rumor collapses against reality

The rumor that turns Spain into NATO's nuclear warehouse

A relative with a post at the UN. That is the only evidence offered to support the claim that the United States asked Spain to move and store NATO nuclear weapons at former decommissioned bases. The source is unverifiable, but the rumor is already spreading: France supposedly does not want to get its hands dirty, and the new missile system would have a range reaching South Africa.

Technical analyses knock down the hypothesis in short order. A decommissioned nuclear base cannot store warheads without containment, cooling and security infrastructure that cannot be improvised over a weekend. Spain has no intercontinental offensive capability; what it has are defensive interceptors at Rota, and any new system would require budget and visible testing. Nuclear deterrence only works between powers capable of wiping each other off the map. Threatening Segarro with a Hiroshima and a Nagasaki makes no sense: the Alaouite kingdom has no means to escalate.

The debate over a European nuclear arsenal is real, though. France keeps its M51 missiles on Le Triomphant-class submarines and the United Kingdom its Tridents on the Vanguard class. Spain, for now, stays out of that club. The chatter about the PSOE (Spain's ruling Socialist Party) and its erratic decisions feeds the legend, but believing that the Government will house atomic bombs is a leap no evidence supports. Meanwhile, the only solid fact is that not a single document has been presented.