Morocco is once again the target of bellicose rhetoric from Spain, where a string of retired military officers has taken to the airwaves with increasingly reckless threats against the Kingdom. Retired General Francisco José Gan Pampols, once head of Spain’s military intelligence service, claimed his country could « extinguish Morocco in 24 hours » — a boast as absurd as it is telling of a colonial mindset that Madrid seems unable to shake off, decades after the fact.
He was quickly joined by Admiral Juan Rodríguez Garat, a former commander of the Spanish fleet, who sketched out a full-scale confrontation scenario targeting Moroccan critical infrastructure through air, naval and cyber capabilities. Such language sits uneasily with the language of good-neighborliness Madrid claims to champion in official statements.
The Spanish daily El Español eagerly amplified the threats, running detailed spreads on Spain’s military hardware — Eurofighter jets, F-18s, naval bases — in what reads less like journalism than an exercise in psychological pressure aimed at a domestic audience.
None of this occurs in a vacuum. In late August, Madrid designated the occupied cities of Ceuta and Melilla as matters of « national security concern, » mobilizing personnel and resources accordingly. Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles had already set the tone during a provocative mid-August visit to Ceuta, declaring that « any attack on these cities would be an attack on Spain » — a thinly veiled attempt to entrench a colonial presence that international law has never formally recognized.
The convergence of military bluster and media amplification points to a deeper anxiety in Madrid over Morocco’s growing strategic weight, as the Kingdom cements its role as an indispensable player on regional security and diplomatic files. Rather than embracing the partnership language that shared challenges — migration, security, trade — actually demand, certain circles in the Spanish capital continue to lean on rhetoric ill-suited to Morocco’s standing in 2026.
For its part, Rabat continues to consolidate its territorial integrity and its network of international partnerships, treating these outbursts for what they are: a symptom of anxiety, not a display of strength.
