Grupo Antimilitarista Tortuga & Juan Carlos Rois.
29/12/2025
The researcher and activist Juan Carlos Rois, in collaboration with the Tortuga Anti-Militarist Group, has just published his report on Spanish militarism in 2025.
Juan Carlos Rois has a long track record of research into military spending, non-violence and the transarmament. Every year he publishes a report on the Spanish state’s military spending, essential reading for peace and anti-militarist activists. This report on the state of militarism in 2025 includes, in addition to objective figures, a rigorous study of its economic and social impacts. A new feature is an analysis of its regressive effects on the poorest sections of the Spanish population. This is a contribution of paramount importance to any study of our social reality: from every perspective, militarism, as well as being a criminal and oppressive system, fosters class inequalities more than almost anything else.
We reproduce the introduction here. The full text can be downloaded at the end of this review (in Spanish).
"We cannot ignore the fact that militarism has played a greater role than we would wish in the course of human history. This is certainly true of the history of our state institutions and of the education of the masses who have supported them.
Despite this, it had at least been achieved that certain authoritarian rhetoric and some violent ideologies remained in the shadows, fearing rejection in the public sphere. It seems that this is no longer the case.
Much is said about the intolerant and militaristic rhetoric of the far right, but if we analyse the situation rigorously, we can see that this discourse is also accepted by a large part of the traditional right. Moreover, if we examine with some care the expenditure involved in military spending in Spain, we can conclude that the nature of our institutions is distinctly militaristic, even when they are controlled by groups that proclaim themselves to be left-wing.
This document demonstrates that Spain’s military expenditure in 2025 exceeded 65 billion euros, a amount that is 4.49 times higher than the figure acknowledged by the government. This is because, in addition to the official expenditure of the Ministry of Defence, one must account for expenditure hidden within other ministries and budget chapters; furthermore, other items must be taken into account, such as extra-budgetary expenditure generated by the misuse of the contingency fund, scheduled multi-annual expenditure, and the annual repayment of public debt.
That's about 4.1% of our GDP, which debunks the whole myth that Spain spends less than 2.1% of its GDP on defence and is therefore one of the least committed members of NATO.
The reality is quite different: of the 42 militaristic and Atlanticist governments, Spain is the seventh-largest contributor to the organisation.
Furthermore, since the time of Felipe González, Spain has been a notably interventionist power and is currently involved, according to official figures, in 19 missions—seven of which are NATO missions—at a cost of over 1.7 billion euros.
And our estimate, as demonstrated in this report, is that spending on defence and social control will rise by 2026 – despite the budget freeze – to exceed 80 billion euros.
Finally, we would like to make it clear that every page you see here has been written with rigour and thoroughness; however, since truth is the best starting point, they also offer some inspiring principles for trying to make the world a better place.
In the face of rhetoric and policies fuelled by fear and hatred, and in the face of exorbitant military spending that constrains social budgets and places the burden on the shoulders of the most disadvantaged, we are exploring the concept of human security.
Re-armament and interventionism will not build a more welcoming world; they will only reinforce violent dynamics. Social and environmental policies are the way to build a more caring and secure world. And it will be the people, rather than institutions, who must champion them.
In short, below we present the most in-depth analysis we have been able to produce on the evolution of military and social control spending in Spain, as well as its relationship with society and its dynamics."
Full report available to download as a PDF
Executive summary of the report (downloadable as a PDF)