Gustavo de Arístegui: ‘We are deaf, blind and mute to the consequences of mixing party politics with foreign policy’

In the latest episode of ‘De cara al mundo’ on Onda Madrid, we were joined by Gustavo de Arístegui, diplomat and international analyst, who reviewed the importance of international politics in conflict resolution, concerns about the outbreak of major conflicts, and the consequences of cutting ties with Israel for Spain and what this entails in the field of intelligence.

Mr de Aristegui, the world is in turmoil, dangerously convulsive, with violence here and there, which is more than worrying because it could give the impression that someone wants to impose chaos or the law of the jungle, right?

I think they are playing with fire. Many world leaders do not realise that, in circumstances such as these, any misstep, any excess, any verbal escalation or even a misunderstood gesture can end up leading to an escalation of terrible and unpredictable consequences.

We are in a situation, as I have heard some important analysts say, where we are in Sarajevo again, and that happened just over 100 years ago. I hope not, but I fear that everything we are seeing is a succession of incidents that could end up destabilising the world in a very serious way. Let's look, for example, at the situation in Gaza, which has no possible justification today. What is happening in Poland, not to mention Ukraine, with constant, ongoing provocation from the Russians, who do not want to stop the war, who do not want to take seriously the peace proposals, the threats, the sanctions, or anything else.

And then, of course, there is the drone incident, which must be analysed very carefully. First, there are three options, three possible scenarios. One is that it was a GPS and artificial intelligence error, which is unlikely, but not impossible.

The second is a test of the determination and preparedness of NATO and the Polish armed forces, which is the most likely scenario. And the third, which I think is the least likely, is that it was really an attempted attack on Polish territory, which I do not believe. Although it was carried out with the most sophisticated drones in the Russian arsenal, they are neither cheap nor scrap, as has been said in the Spanish media, they are the most sophisticated models manufactured by the Iranians.

And here we see yet another unholy alliance of Russia. It always ends up with the most abominable subjects on the international scene, and in this case, the Iranian regime.

Perhaps I would dare to analyse, to think about, one, to press, to be a test of the political will of the allies to respond, and really, well, let's see how we interpret that from Trump, from let's go there. And also a test of the operational capacity of the air defences. But not just an attack, but a test, testing the political will and the operational issue.

Exactly, it's the second of my three scenarios, which I said was the most likely, in fact. And we have also seen something very worrying, which is that sophisticated aircraft such as the Dutch F-35s or the Polish F-16s, upgraded with the most sophisticated weapons, were only able to shoot down a few of these drones, because anti-drone defence is not the same as defence with an interceptor aircraft. As a result, we Europeans are realising that we need to catch up in many areas.

First, in anti-missile systems. Second, in light and heavy weapons ammunition factories. Third, in the supply chain and production of both cruise and long-range missiles to simply feed the Ukrainian front. Let's imagine that we had a more generalised war scenario; we would run out of arsenals in a matter of days.

That is the reality. Thirdly, we have to learn about the new warfare that combines both. When we hear armchair experts say that war is not fought with tanks and fighter planes, it is fought with those and also with swarms of drones.

And now we are already seeing, for example, underwater drones, surface drones, and obviously the different types of drones that we are seeing on the battlefield in Iran, the Middle East, and now in Ukraine and Poland. Europe has a lot of homework to do, and we have to start studying tomorrow what the sixth-generation fighter jet is, because the Americans, the Chinese and the Russians are already working on it, and we are not.

And that includes, when you talk about Europe, Spain above all, because we may think that Poland is very far away, but Spain should also be prepared to deal with 19 drones or whatever may come, and we have been left, due to a political decision, let's say, without the F-35s, and we are going for another type of aircraft that will take much longer to become operational in Spain, which means that in Spain, however progressive or not our ideas may be, more or less progressive, reality dictates that Spain must also prepare itself to face all the risks and threats that exist and that we are seeing these days.

Without a doubt, I will start with the issue of the F-35s. I have rarely seen such nonsense in my life. It is true that there are European countries that, given the doubts raised by the United States' attitude regarding its reliability as an ally, were saying that they did not want to buy American combat aircraft because of the risk posed by the famous little box or the on and off switch that the Americans can put on combat systems.

We have already seen that this does not really work. Many of the aircraft end up being modified by the national industries themselves. Take, for example, the Spanish F-18s, which now have little or nothing to do with those we bought from the United States. there are lots of avionics, weapons and radar systems that are either Spanish or European, and therefore it is effectively an American platform, but with European technological sophistication worthy of mention. Giving up the F-35 is extraordinary nonsense, it is the only aircraft that can take off from the Juan Carlos I today, and furthermore, while Spain finally decides to build a real aircraft carrier in the style of the Charles de Gaulle, as has been said in the specialised media, we will in fact have to have a platform that serves a purpose, because obviously the Harrier Matadors are 50-year-old aircraft and we cannot go anywhere with them, subsonic aircraft with very little load capacity, complicated manoeuvrability, etc.

But speaking of the distance of the war, we have another war nearby, which is the Sahel, with a large number of terrorist groups that may one day overwhelm us, but there is also a very clear reasoning: there are three types of Russian hypersonic missiles, the slowest takes 15 minutes to reach Spain, the medium one takes 9 minutes and the fastest takes 5 minutes, from Russia to any target on the Iberian Peninsula, 5 minutes.

We must take this into account. Trump's response was, “OK, let's go there”. Do you think Trump is being ignored by Putin in some way? He said he was going to end the war in Gaza and the war in Ukraine in five minutes, as soon as he arrived at the White House. He has rolled out the red carpet for Putin, and yet the Russian leader continues to follow his own interests and objectives and does not care about anything else.

I believe that the problem lies not only in the United States, but in the global Western political class. We have a political class that is far from being up to the very serious circumstances we are experiencing at the moment. Imagine if we had had something similar in the aftermath of the Second World War. Would we have been able to build the European Union? I doubt it. Would we have been able to create NATO? I doubt it. Would we have been able to implement the Marshall Plan and rebuild Europe? I doubt it. With a political class like the one we have here, it would have been impossible. What must be said very clearly is that Vladimir Putin's political and psychological abilities and experience have been underestimated.

Vladimir Putin has been in power for 25 years, soon to be 26. He has dealt with all the heads of state around the world during those 26 years, with five US presidents, some of them serving two terms. He knows perfectly well the rules of the psychological chess game of power.

A KGB officer, surely the most brutal and unscrupulous intelligence service in human history, trained in manipulation, trained in psychological warfare, no one can imagine that a politician of today will be able to outmanoeuvre Vladimir Putin. Consequently, what is required is, first, a great deal of determination, a large team of advisors of all kinds, with great experience and brilliance, and to stop using geostrategic and international politics for internal politics and internal consumption, as is unfortunately done not only in Spain, but in many parts of the world. Nothing can be done if Vladimir Putin is not given the importance and respect he deserves, however much we may disagree with him.

Vladimir Putin is a brilliant, Machiavellian and unscrupulous statesman. And if the European political class does not understand all these things, we will get nowhere.

And we must stop using internal political issues, such as in Spain, the issue of Israel, Gaza, Palestine, etc., etc., which is not as simple as people would like or are suggesting. I believe that the term genocide is being trivialised and should be used, also by the international courts, which are the ones who have to decide, but in any case, we should go hand in hand with the European Union and not unilaterally, as is currently being done.

Not only the European Union, as it already caused Vice-President Teresa Rivera some truly extraordinary embarrassment when she used the term so lightly. The official spokesperson for the European Commission had to refute the vice-president's statements, correcting her and telling her that this is determined by international courts.

We are not questioning that there are atrocities, we are not questioning that there are crimes against humanity, we are not questioning that there are war crimes. We must be very careful with our words, so that, for example, if the intention is to displace the entire population from the strip, we would be talking about a crime of ethnic cleansing, such as those that took place in the Balkans, which you followed as a war correspondent there. And, consequently, only when the population is displaced from their usual place of residence is it ethnic cleansing.

If the entire population of that place is eliminated, or an attempt is made to do so, that is genocide. But that said, this does not in any way reduce the responsibility for the excesses committed. And we are seeing, I read Jaretz every day, and I think it is an important exercise, it is the Israeli press.

The issues it has reported on are extremely serious. These army units acting on their own initiative and carrying out acts of revenge and indiscriminate killings, apparently without the knowledge of the central command, or perhaps with the authorisation of part of the central command, are things that need to be studied, investigated and punished in the appropriate courts. But let us return to the other issue, which is at the heart of the matter, namely the use of international issues for domestic political purposes or as smokescreens, as has been said so many times.

I am watching with great concern the escalation of statements between the two sides, because, let us not forget, the often excessive responses of Benjamin Netanyahu himself with regard to Spain are giving him exactly the product and result that the Spanish Prime Minister wants, because that is what he needs: confrontation with an international leader who has very little influence on international public opinion. at this moment in time, because he is once again presenting himself to the world as one of the heroes who stands up to injustice and excess.

Consequently, in Spain, foreign policy began to be used as a weapon with the Iraq War in 2002, and this was the work of Mr Zapatero. Mr Zapatero was the one who used it. I was the foreign affairs spokesperson in Congress at the time, and I am not going to say that my life during the previous two years had been peaceful, because political confrontation is always tough, but it was not the acidity, the brutality, the bestiality of going out on the street and hearing insults of murderer or being booed, having your feet stamped on, having your statements and reality manipulated in order to try to demonise your opponent. and all this is leading us to the toxicity of the terrain, of the sphere of general politics, of partisan politics in the different democracies of the world, which leads us to things like Charlie Kirk, but that's another story. It is not possible and should be prohibited, almost constitutionally, for partisan politics to contaminate foreign policy. As a diplomat, and having been a politician in the field of foreign policy, I find this shameful.

And we have always seen, historically, that when some political leaders have internal problems, they invent an external enemy to distract attention. What worries me about this whole situation is something that is not being talked about much, especially considering the terrorist attack in Jerusalem, and that is that right now we may be blind, deaf and dumb, that is, we have cut off our channels of communication and information with services as important and necessary as the Israeli intelligence service. Even the Americans are very cautious. Some Europeans are also distrustful. In this case, the foreign policy being pursued by Pedro Sánchez as the great leader of the far left in the world is perhaps very delicate at this moment, because we have seen how terrorism can reawaken anywhere, and right now, we have very important channels of information that have been cut off.

I completely agree. I endorse this one hundred per cent. Information, intelligence and analysis are extremely sensitive issues. Not only because sensitive information may be revealed to people who should not have access to it, even among allied countries. I am referring, for example, to the communist sector of the Spanish government, which has clearly anti-Western, anti-NATO, pro-Russian and pro-Chinese tendencies.

Who can tell us what sensitive information reaches the government and, consequently, once it reaches the government, which part of the government it reaches? As a result, that information can be leaked with disastrous consequences for the general interest, including the interests of the countries that share the information with us. Let us not forget, moreover, that after the failure of global intelligence around 11 September 2001, the anniversary of which was last week, human intelligence, human sources, were once again placed at the centre of the intelligence world.

This means that there are Western intelligence agents in the field, informants or assets of the intelligence services in those countries, and that leaking information would endanger the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of people. This is not a minor issue; it is not a game. And at this moment, Spain has lost access because of games and frivolities with Huawei and other things.

Let us not forget, moreover, the privileged relationship that some people close to the government have with the company. As a result, we no longer have access to information from the satellites of the NRO (National Reconnaissance Organisation), the NSA (National Security Agency), or to information of any kind from the CIA or the DIA. We have obviously lost our cooperation with Mossad regarding its extremely important information on jihadist terrorism.

And then, many of the countries that are allies of all of these are required not to share information with Spain because they do not want leaks to occur. Consequently, all the countries that have relations with these services I have mentioned are also not going to share information with us because they are prohibited from doing so by the owner of the information. Furthermore, they are told that they cannot give out their own information because they do not know to what extent one depends on the other and, as a result, one thing could contaminate the other.

We are currently blind and deaf to the possible risks that, as you rightly say, are latent. And this is something that particularly concerns me. The current geopolitical situation is perfect for hiding the preparation of brutal attacks because, obviously, the attention of the general intelligence services or the military intelligence services is focused on Gaza, Iran, Ukraine and Poland.

And, obviously, we are neglecting the part, perhaps not the domestic part, but what may come from outside other areas. The Sahel, the growing presence of jihadist terrorism in sub-Saharan Africa, etc.