Weak border control raises failed state question in Spain

Border defence: the failed state test

The words of former US president Ronald Reagan still ring true: "A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation." The question running through Spain's economic analysis is direct: if the state fails to defend its citizens from an invasion, are we looking at a failed state? The answer seems obvious, but it hides nuances worth examining.

The first nuance concerns how resources are used. Spain is not a poor state that cannot afford an army; it has the means. What some analyses point out is that those means are not directed at defending citizens, but at protecting the political apparatus. The diagnosis is harsh: it is not a problem of resources, but of priorities. Some states fail through lack of means; the Spanish case would be a failure through misdirected spending.

The second nuance separates the state from the government. The constitutional structure and the armed forces may be intact; what is questionable is the drift of a particular executive and its alliances. This reading even recalls that the historical nation-state did not always defend all the peoples it claimed to include, which complicates the idea of a single homeland to protect. In this view, the government would be under external pressure because of its international policy, in a geopolitical game that goes beyond borders.

For the taxpayer, the issue is no longer theoretical: taxes keep being paid while the security received in return deteriorates. And security, as Milton Friedman once noted, is a public good the market cannot supply. If the state abandons that function, there is no private alternative. The analysis gets stuck on the interpretation: is it a failure of the state or a failure of the government? Each answer leads to different solutions, but the very fact that the question is on the table is already a symptom of Spain's malaise.