No, Britain Wouldn't Necessarily Win a War with Spain

Top image by Mario Sánchez Bueno via Wikimedia Commons

This article originally appeared on VICE Spain

When Gibraltar became an issue in early Brexit negotiations recently, it all escalated pretty quickly and ridiculously – on Sunday the 2nd of April, former Conservative leader Lord Howard suggested that Britain could go to war over Gibraltar, and by the 7th, The Sun was projecting "Hands off Our Rock", "No Way José" and "Up Yours Señors" messages on Gibraltar's Rock.

During that week, VICE UK spoke to British military expert Nick Watts about who would win a hypothetical war between Britain and Spain – according to Watts, that would be Britain. VICE Spain respectfully disagrees, so we spoke to Guillem Colom Piella – professor of Political Science at Pablo de Olavide University in Sevilla and a former employee of the Spanish Ministry of Defence – about the same issue.

VICE: What would be more likely – for a war to break out between Spain and Britain or for Spain to win that hypothetical war? 
Guillem Colom: Well, it is more likely that the war would not start at all. In international relations, this is what we call the wild card or a black swan – a highly unlikely scenario. Both countries are members of the United Nations and, as a collective security system, the UN's main principle is that members resolve their disputes peacefully. So objectively, there won't be a war over Gibraltar.

What about NATO?
NATO, as an organisation, is based on Article 5 and the idea of collective defence – which means that an attack on one member is considered an attack on all members. So legally, a war between Spain and Britain would be a contradiction of that. And if either countries were threatening war, the North Atlantic Council – the most important decision-making body of NATO – would hold formal and informal meetings to basically ask them what the hell they think they're doing.

If a war does break out, do you think we'd be able to defend our land against the Brits at all?
Yes, of course. Great Britain would have to deploy its military forces and send them to the Iberian Peninsula, to the south of Spain. Great Britain hasn't had aircraft carriers for years and they've been without their Harrier fleet since 2010. So in that respect – they won't be able to do much.

WATCH: We asked people if Britain should go to war over Gibraltar

So we're safe.
Oh absolutely. There's also a very important Spanish naval base at about 150 kilometres from Gibraltar, in Rota.You can see on the map that Rota is in a bloody good position, because it looks out over the Atlantic. We could basically close off access to the Mediterranean for the British. We have a submarine base in Cartagena in the North, and planes waiting at the Morón air base, near Sevilla. We'd be able to establish some good defences – and in war, whichever side can defend itself is always in the strongest position.

Would it be possible for them to carry out an air attack directly from Great Britain?
They could send over planes form Britain, but those planes would have to refuel in-flight two or three times – the French wouldn't let them fly in French airspace and they would have to make a ridiculous detour to get to Gibraltar. So if that would happen, we'd have our F-100 frigates, which are equipped with very efficient anti-aircraft defence systems.

How about if the Brits just got really offended and invaded the whole peninsula – not just Gibraltar? 
They'd only be able to invade by carrying out a landing operation on the shore, as they obviously wouldn't come through the Pyrenees. The Royal Marines wouldn't be able to do much – they don't have tanks, for example. Carrying out a landing only using helicopters and frigates would be impossible. And even if they did, the Spanish air defence of the territory would be more than ready. No, the British army wouldn't have the means to invade.

And if everything got even more out of control and we got so pissed off that we wanted to invade Britain? 
We would have everything to lose – just think of how our "Invincible Armada" was destroyed. The Brits' best and worst luck is that they're far away.

On paper, which army is stronger? If we put both armies on a massive level playing field?
On paper, the UK has more personnel, more fighter planes and more transport aircraft. In theory, Great Britain would win. We have an assault troop, like the Spanish Legion, but Britain also has historical regiments that have a lot of experience – like the Scottish ones. In the end though, we've got balls and darker skin – I think we would win.

In Spain, we have a pretty thriving defence industry. Could the fact that we build and sell weapons all around the world help us at all? 
During the Second World War, Germany started a war economy which meant that, in 1943, all industrial efforts were focused on military equipment. Spain could in theory do something similar, but modern weapons have gotten so extremely complicated that building them takes a lot of time and money. The cost of weapon systems is so high that's very difficult to manufacture planes and tanks during a relatively short war.

What other options would we have besides a war, to really screw the British over? Would it work if we stopped serving Brits alcohol in Magaluf? 
We all lose in an economic war. We export a lot of agricultural products to the UK, it would be dramatic if they introduced a ban in return. And keeping Brits from holidaying in Spain would affect our GDP.

So this talk of war – could it be just a way to distract from other political issues?
Without a shadow of a doubt. It was definitely a cock-up that there was no mention of Gibraltar in the initial Brexit discussions, but the way it has gotten out of hand is because the Brits – or the Tories to be more precise – are trying to work out how to sell Brexit.

It could also be an attempt to put pressure on Spain for the European Council to vote in favour of a soft Brexit. A hard Brexit may mean that the Brits will stop spending their money in Magaluf, and that's not in Spain's interest. But mostly, this talk of war is an attempt to gain some national pride within the context of Brexit.