Fifteen million bullets, and Spain’s military dilemma

Spain is re-arming.

Or at least so they say.

This week’s political scandal here in Spain involves 15 million bullets that the government recently ordered from Israel.

The fifteen million 9mm parabellum bullets (also known as 9mm Luger) were supposed to supply the Guardia Civil at a price of 6.6 million euros, with the order split between three Israeli suppliers.

One problem, though: Pedro Sánchez had also said that the government wouldn’t be buying arms from Israel, due to the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

Apparently that wasn’t true at all, and wasn’t meant to be legally binding.

Like I said, it’s been a scandal. The far-left Sumar party has said they’re willing to leave the government coalition over the issue of the Israeli bullets. But those in charge originally said there was nothing to be done, the contract was already finalized.

When Sumar wouldn’t drop the matter, Sánchez promised to find a way out – even though his Minister of the Interior had just said it was impossible.

The center-right Partido Popular wants to take the whole thing to court, because if the government has to pay millions of euros anyway, it’s a huge waste of taxpayer money if they then refuse to take the bullets.

The other details released to the press are a bit vague, but it would appear someone in the administration is lying about the whole thing. It just isn’t clear who.

Spanish bombs, oh mi corazón

I searched around, but didn’t find much about how many bullets the Spanish government uses.

Apparently, the National Police buys bullets by the millions as well, according to Libertad Digital. One recent order included 480,000 boxes of 9mm bullets (100 bullets to a box) to cover the years 2024 to 2027.

That is, if my math is correct, 48 million bullets: enough to shoot everybody in Spain once… or, perhaps, enough for quite a bit of target practice.

In the meantime, it would appear that the Spanish government has signed no fewer than 46 contracts with Israeli defense companies in the past couple of years, despite what Sánchez promised.

A couple of these contracts are quite large, for some sort of mobile rocket-launching system.

In theory, the Spanish have little immediate need for a mobile rocket launching system, but the last thing you want as a government is to be under attack and have to announce to the public that you never bothered to buy things for the military.

Oops! We were too busy to buy bullets or rockets, and now the Russians are coming.

The great Spanish re-arming

All this bullet-buying comes in the context of Spain’s renewed commitment to NATO.

US President Donald Trump has recently been demanding that NATO countries keep up their end of the long-standing treaty, and spend at least 2% of their GDP on their militaries.

(The NATO website calls this the “2% defense investment guideline”, and I don’t know, but the word “guideline” makes it seem like it’s up for some interpretation.)

Anyway, Pedro Sánchez has said that Spain will work towards 2%, and we’ll just find 10 billion euros somewhere. But he technically can’t get a budget passed even without all the new military spending, so it’s not clear if this is just more empty talk.

Of course, these days everyone on social media is an expert on NATO treaties and geopolitics, so I’m not going to get into it here. I’m sure someone from your gym can explain to you how to solve the Ukraine war, as well as bring peace to the middle East and keep Taiwan safe.

I have no idea about any of those issues, but I’d guess that having a military that’s actually prepared to do some fighting would be a good start. At least, in that case, you can negotiate from a place of strength.

That sophisticated European pacifism

Europeans love to claim that they’ve evolved beyond the need for a military, and that Americans are just a bunch of ignorant barbarians who insist on solving things with violence.

And that philosophy works if there are no specific threats on the horizon.

But as soon as (for example) Russia attacks some country out on the edge of Europe, all the peaceniks over here scream “But why won’t the Americans come save us!?”

Such is the reality of spending several decades under the US security umbrella.

European countries just assume the US will take care of them, and are woefully unprepared for battle.

I wrote last year that Europe might have to get ready for future conflicts sooner rather than later. I believe I remarked that a military buildup might cure some of the gender confusion I’m seeing among younger Spaniards, but I suppose that’s premature. (Still, a lot of people look like they could use some calisthenics and marching.)

Several articles I read today suggest that the war in Ukraine has made European governments realize that if it really comes down to it, they have enough bullets for a few days of war at most.

Now they’re thinking maybe they should have a larger supply on hand.

What is Europe, anyway?

When I wrote, a couple of months ago, about the concept of the five (or seven) continents, I mentioned that the idea of Europe is only that: an idea.

The European Union is an attempt to create a common identity and a shared European project in an area where people have proven more than happy to slaughter each other by the millions.

But as it is, it’s unclear where Europe ends and something else begins.

Can Israel join the EU? Can Turkey?

Neither country is what I really consider to be “Europe” but then again, I’m just a guy with a blog. Apparently, both countries have some interest, and may eventually be involved in the EU.

They’re also talking about adding Ukraine to the EU, or to NATO.

Still, the idea that Europeans would be ready to go to war en masse to protect some distant wheat fields seems a bit far-fetched. Or what if someone decides to make a move on Greenland?

Well, Greenland is Danish – will young Spaniards be willing disembark on the ice-shoals D-Day style, in order to protect Denmark’s territorial possession? Maybe. But for now it seems like a big ask.

(Would the Danes, for that matter, send their Navy out to defend the Canary Islands if it came to that? What about the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla on the African coast?)

All this to say: unless Europe can define itself, I don’t know how it will defend itself. So maybe deciding who is and who’s not European would make things a bit easier, moving forward.

Are your bullets ethically sourced?

But back to those bullets.

In the 1990s, when I was a younger and more idealistic person, a lot of folks assumed that giant corporations were just evil, for various reasons.

Then all the giant corporations got Twitter accounts run by woke interns, and now we can choose to spend our money with companies that share our deeply-held values – or, at least, parrot them on social media.

The fact that the politicians in Sumar want to make sure that our bullets are ethically sourced is just a logical extension of that strange urge. Let’s find an arms dealer that supports LGBTQIA2S+ communities. A weapons manufacturer that defends the environment (while also creating the tools for blowing parts of it up). Etc.

With that in mind, I wondered if Pedro Sanchez could buy his bullets locally.

Spain actually had a few munitions companies, but they’ve recently been sold to foreign investors. One of the biggest ones, with several factories around Spain, was bought by a conglomerate out of Düsseldorf called Rheinmetall.

Still, maybe the government could get its bullets from closer to home next time, creating jobs here in Spain, and instead of involving the Israelis, give the business to Germany, a country with an unblemished human rights record.

Strategically yours,

Daniel AKA Mr Chorizo.

P.S. This military rabbit hole is one I’ve really never been down before. Today I learned, for example, that apart from bullets European governments are trying to stock up on 155mm artillery rounds, which cost around 8000€ each, have a range of 24km, and weigh 45 kilos. Sounds like you could just set up a howitzer on the hills outside Barcelona and terrorize the whole town (and some of the surrounding ones as well) until your taxpayer money ran out. Scary.

P.P.S. This thing where people feel the need to loudly announce which side they’re on in every popular cause is a bit exhausting to me. But I get it. Posting a square on social media is way easier than actually doing anything. People get their social validation without even getting out of bed. Strange times.