The Drums of War, 24 Years On

In 2002, I wrote an article placing Spain’s policy towards Gibraltar within the wider strategic context of its relationship with Morocco. My central argument was simply that Madrid’s increasingly confrontational approach to Gibraltar was strategically hazardous because Spain was simultaneously facing mounting tensions with Morocco over Ceuta, Melilla and a wider set of unresolved territorial and regional questions.

At the time, the government of José María Aznar was heavily preoccupied with Gibraltar. Tensions were rising over proposals for Anglo-Spanish joint sovereignty, while relations between Madrid and Rabat were also deteriorating. Within months, the dispute over the tiny island of Perejil would culminate in a brief armed confrontation between Spain and Morocco.

My article was entitled “Who Will Stop the Drums of War?“

 Not surprisingly Morocco has long regarded Gibraltar, Ceuta and Melilla as unfinished territorial questions arising from European colonial history, even though Spain rejects any legal equivalence between them.  From Madrid’s perspective, Gibraltar is a decolonisation dispute involving Britain, while Ceuta and Melilla are integral parts of Spain. Viewed from Rabat, however, Spanish insistence on Gibraltar inevitably invites uncomfortable comparisons with Spain’s own possession of territory on the North African coast.

That apparent lack of equilibrium has always contained the potential for diplomatic friction and worse.

I also drew attention to what I regarded as Spain’s strategic vulnerability in any prolonged confrontation with Morocco. Morocco was modernising its armed forces then and has continued to do so. A serious deterioration in relations would impose military, political and financial costs on Spain, particularly given its responsibilities for Ceuta and Melilla and its wider defence commitments.

My conclusion in 2002 was therefore that Spain required greater strategic pragmatism over Gibraltar. Rather than allowing the sovereignty dispute to become an enduring obstacle to regional cooperation, Madrid should recognise that any durable settlement must enjoy the democratic consent of the people of Gibraltar.

History also counselled caution. Spain’s experience in North Africa has included monumental military reverses in the 1920s, the eventual relinquishment of Sidi Ifni and the ignominious withdrawal from the Spanish Sahara. None of these episodes may directly analogous to the present, but collectively they illustrate the dangers.

The essential argument of my 2002 article was therefore that pressure on Gibraltar was counterproductive at precisely the moment when Spain faced a more consequential strategic challenge in managing its relationship with Morocco and that it would be better to focus on a collaborative regional approach.

There were subsequently attempts to imagine a different regional future. Academic and institutional work, including initiatives associated with the University of Cádiz, explored forms of cross-border and territorial cooperation involving Gibraltar and the Campo de Gibraltar. More recent work has examined the legal viability of a European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation between Gibraltar and the Campo de Gibraltar. The broader intellectual premise was important in that the Strait need not be understood solely as a frontier separating competing sovereignties, but as a region in which joint prosperity and stability might be built through cooperation.

Whether that opportunity still exists is a much more difficult question.

Morocco today is a far more self-confident state than it was at the beginning of the century. Its international profile has risen, and its national self-confidence is visible in diplomacy, infrastructure, sport and culture. Its football team reached the quarterfinals of the 2026 World Cup after having made history as Africa’s first World Cup semi-finalist in 2022. At the same time, figures such as Lamine Yamal have come to embody the increasingly complex human, cultural and familial connections between Spain and Morocco, connections that cannot easily be contained within traditional nationalist narratives.

For many young Moroccans emigration to Europe, a land of apparent plenty is now a settled ambition.

Against that background, the current crisis in Ceuta is deeply disturbing. Tens of thousands of people crossed from Morocco into the Spanish enclave in an unprecedented surge, and scores died in the attempt. For reasons which it almost impossible to fathom those who broke into Ceuta on the 30th and 31st of July 2026 included more than 1,000 children.

The European Parliament’s research service has described the episode as exposing serious vulnerabilities at one of the European Union’s land borders with Africa. Meanwhile the world has is still in shock that whilst all this was unfolding Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was on holiday publishing summer music and reading recommendations, an episode critics cite as evidence of extreme political detachment from the seriousness of events – a throwing in of the beach towel (flip fops and goggles) as it were.

The precise lessons of that crisis will be debated for years. What is already clear is that the relationship between Spain and Morocco can no longer be treated as a secondary bilateral matter. It sits at the intersection of migration, security, trade, energy, European policy, North African geopolitics and questions of sovereignty on both sides of the Strait.

Twenty-four years after I first asked who would stop the drums of war, the metaphor seems much more topical and disturbing than I would have wished.

The danger is not necessarily conventional war (I hope). It is however a progressive erosion of strategic trust, accompanied by recurring border crises, competitive nationalism and the political instrumentalization of territorial disputes (now including the Canary Islands – a long held territorial ambition of the United States) with the possibility of horrendous humiliation for whoever blinks first.

That is why the lesson I drew in 2002 still more relevant than ever. Spain, Morocco, Gibraltar and the communities surrounding the Strait ultimately have more to gain from institutionalised cooperation than from the perpetual rehearsal of historical grievances. Sovereignty questions will not disappear, but the question is whether we are still in time.

The Herculean challenge today is whether there remains sufficient political imagination, ability and desire on either side of the Strait to silence the noise of war.