A fair weather ally is worse than an enemy during times of real conflict. While Spain is arguably a third world shat hole at the moment, they have great geography and have historically acted as block to Muslim encroachment into greater Europe.
Has Spain lost its character? Where is the old Inquisition one drop crowd?
Seriously though, what a flounder of a move by Spain. Just placate with a bit of land and keep head low.
Before the Iraq War, France said the U.S. was making a mistake. Washington mocked them for it — “Freedom Fries,” political attacks, the whole thing. Years later, the weapons of mass destruction case collapsed, and the central justification for the war turned out to be wrong.
For decades, U.S. and Israeli officials have warned that Iran was “weeks away” from a nuclear weapon. Three decades later, that warning is still repeated. From a European perspective, it’s reasonable to question whether this is another case of threat inflation being used to justify military action. Europe is stuck. It relies heavily on the United States for security, but it’s also wary of being drawn into another open-ended conflict. Trust has been strained (Greenland), yet Europe doesn’t have a fully independent military structure to fall back on. That creates hesitation — not betrayal.
If Spain looks at the situation and decides the case for war isn’t convincing, refusing to participate doesn’t make it a “fair-weather ally.” It means it’s making its own judgment call. France was criticized in 2003 and later viewed by many as having been cautious for good reason. Spain is taking a similar position now and I am pretty sure history will look favorably on them.
This post was edited by ferdia on Mar 4 2026 10:26am