The Operational Environment 2035: National Interests in the Security Environment

On 31 October 2023, INCIPE held the seminar entitled The Operational Environment 2035: National Interests in the Security Environment, in collaboration with the Ministry of Defence. The opening was led by Manuel Alabart, Ambassador of Spain and Secretary General of INCIPE, and TG Fernando López del Pozo, Director General of Defence Policy (DIGENPOL), Ministry of Defence. The closing speech was delivered by the TG Fernando García González-Valerio, Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Defence Staff (JEMACON), Ministry of Defence.

In this session, we had the opportunity to organise two round tables. The first, entitled Security risks and threats and their impact on the operational environment, was moderated by GB Francisco Dacoba, Director General of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies (IEEE), Ministry of Defence, and was attended by GB Carlos Javier Frías, Director of the Army War College, Ministry of Defence; Col. Luis Alberto Hernández, Head of the Analysis and Foresight Section (SEAYP), General Staff (DIVDEF-EMACON-EMAD), Ministry of Defence; and Andrea G. Rodríguez, Senior Researcher for the European Digital Agenda, European Policy Centre (EPC), and member of the European Cybersecurity Forum Committee (CYBERSEC). The second roundtable, Geopolitical, Social and Security Environment, was moderated by Vicente Garrido, Director General of INCIPE, with the participation of Emilio Lamo de Espinosa, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Universidad Complutense and member at Real Academia de Ciencias Morales y Políticas; Col. Jesús Díez Alcalde, Head of the Analysis Unit at Departamento de Seguridad Nacional (DSN), Presidencia del Gobierno; and Eduardo Saldaña, Co-director of El Orden Mundial.

T.G. Fernando López del Pozo began his speech by highlighting the importance of the operational environment, as it shows the future projection within the Ministry of Defence, framed within a current situation full of changes. The operational environment is a fifteen-year forward-looking document, produced through collaboration not only within the armed forces, but also with other administrations, academia, business and industry, so that it encapsulates the strategic thinking of Spain today.

The defence planning process, says López del Pozo, is essential, as it tries to translate political aspects into specific military capabilities. Moreover, it must connect the National Defence Directive with the documents produced by the General Staff. Circumstances, conditions and influences change, so the operational environment is constantly changing. He also highlights the four characteristics that the operational environment currently contemplates: volatility, complexity, ambiguity and uncertainty. And, because of this, the Defence Policy mission must remain as stable as possible, in order to be able to face an increasingly varied reality and threats.

This can be seen in the continuity of defence directives over the past forty years, with two defining features in particular that have been maintained: defence as a public service with the objective of protecting the security and defence of citizens, and a commitment to world peace.

Security risks and threats and their impact on the operational environment

During the first round table, Security risks and threats and their impact on the operational environment, GB Carlos Javier Frías began his intervention by stressing that we are facing a period of change, fundamentally due to the fact that the structure of the international system is shifting from bipolarity to multipolarity. An unbalanced multipolarity, with the United States and China at the forefront, and with a Global South that is becoming increasingly important.

Frías points out that we are living in a world in which risks are combined, which means that in the future operational environment no crisis will be exclusively military, and this will have the effect of requiring collaboration between different institutions in order to protect citizens. Another effect of the period of change we are living through, Frías points out, is the democratisation of technology, which means that groups that did not previously have access to advanced technologies now have them at their fingertips. Moreover, another change we are seeing is that the effect of public opinion on wars is now immediate, and furthermore, thanks to artificial intelligence and deep fakes, it is increasingly difficult to differentiate truth from lies. Finally, Frías stressed that we must not forget that we live in a nuclear world, and that all international relations are affected by this fact, as we are moving towards a multipolar order with an increasing presence of nuclear weapons.

In his speech, Col. Luis Alberto Hernández focused on explaining the different risks and threats contemplated in the Operational Environment 2035 document developed by the Ministry of Defence. The first of the risks he highlights is the lack of threat perception, and the second is the idea that these threats can only be dealt with from a military point of view, since the multiple instruments of power that exist to confront them must be used jointly. These threats, continues Col. Hernández, have a series of characteristics, such as their global nature, since they affect all countries; their transnationality; their multidimensionality; their multifaceted nature; and their simultaneity, such as the risks in cyberspace, which are accompanied by physical attacks, as we have recently seen in the war in Ukraine.

Finally, Hernández divided the different types of threats we face into four main groups: hostile actions by the adversary; those related to technology, which in addition to this, strengthen other threats; interconnection; and threats of a natural nature, such as catastrophes, pandemics or the effects of climate change.

To conclude the round table, Andrea G. Rodríguez focused her presentation on emerging technologies that have an impact on cyberspace. She highlights the growing instrumentalisation and use of these emerging technologies in both the civil and military spheres. She also points out that technologies are increasingly being used as a weapon of economic and geopolitical pressure, and that we must consider the direct impact that the development of biotechnology, quantum technologies, artificial intelligence and semiconductors will have on our lives.

Rodríguez believes that the next five years will be marked by an acceleration in the field of cybersecurity, with the sophistication of certain tools, which will imply the need to pay more attention to cybersecurity and cyberdefence to protect citizens. In addition, she goes on to explain that in these years we will have to face major threats in terms of national security, economic security and information security.

The risks that we will face in the next five years, Rodríguez explains, are centered on technological convergence, which will lead us to a situation in which all information and technologies will be interrelated, with the risks that this entails, so we must develop the necessary instruments to deal with them.

Geopolitical, Social and Security Environment

In the second round table, Geopolitical, Social and Security Environment, Eduardo Saldaña focused his intervention on the general changes that we are seeing in the geopolitical environment and in global dynamics.

Regarding Europe, he indicated that we are in an intermediate position between China and the United States, and that in this change in geopolitical dynamics we find ourselves in a very complicated situation, in which we must decide how to orient our strategy and our foreign policy in order to adapt to these changes.

Furthermore, Saldaña explains, the economic change that is taking place in the world is leading to a reformulation of the globalisation model that we have had until now. This new model is heading towards protectionism, towards regionalisation and will be governed more by security than by economic benefit. We are heading towards a global process of greater polarity, which is going to lead us to geopolitics of greater confrontation.

Emilio Lamo de Espinosa continued this second round table by talking about how we are currently facing a very important process of demographic divergence, which varies enormously between developed and developing countries, and which has been coupled with a process of technological convergence, which means that the GDP of countries is progressively adjusting to their population.

Lamo de Espinosa highlights five negative consequences of the globalisation process, which are divided into: an increase in internal inequality in countries; social dualisation and the rise of populism; an increase in technological but not institutional globalisation; a decrease in satisfaction with democracy at a global level; and finally, what Lamo de Espinosa considers to be the great problem of the 21st century, which is a growing deficit of governability. This last aspect is due to the fact that the problems we are currently facing are global, but we do not have global instruments to manage them.

Col. Jesús Díez Alcalde explains Spain’s perspective on national security, focusing on three crucial areas in the strategic scenario: the context in which we move, the threats we face, and the response of the armed forces to this scenario.

He also stresses the importance of prevention and of detecting problems before having to articulate any kind of response, which is of great benefit to our societies, since, Díez Alcalde reminds us, the objective of Spanish national security policy is to protect the freedom, rights and well-being of citizens. The strategic scenario that surrounds us and threatens our security, Díez Alcalde explains, is a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment, which we cannot confront without giving the importance it deserves to governance, development and security.

Final considerations

TG Fernando García González-Valerio, was in charge of closing the seminar, explaining the importance for the armed forces of paying attention to two major areas, namely: the planning of capabilities to confront today’s risks and threats, and the shaping of strategies and tactics to be carried out, given that in the scenario we face, there is greater competitiveness, greater ambiguity and we find ourselves in a situation of permanent dispute.

He also stresses that the use of the instrument of military power is only one part of the solution, since nowadays all conflicts can be avoided by taking a multidisciplinary and comprehensive approach, and by coordinating and making the most of all the powers of the state, in order to shape a less uncertain future.