BOOK REVIEW EN BUSCA DE UNA ESTRATEGIA DE SEGURIDAD NACIONAL

Abstract

ational Security Strategies (NSS) and the institutions associated with them
- in the case of Spain, the System, the Council and the Department of National
Security - are recent realities in our country. Although they are still in
the development stage they nevertheless represent a historic step forward.
The adjective historic cannot be overemphasised. It is fundamental to the
understanding of a process involving the two approved NSSs so far. The first of these
was titled Estrategia Española de Seguridad. Una responsabilidad de todos - Spanish
Security Strategy. A Responsibility for all- (June 2011, under the Socialist government)
and the second: Estrategia de Seguridad Nacional. Un Proyecto compartido - National
Security Strategy. A shared project - (May 2013, under the Popular Party government).
Spain, one of the main players - if not the leading actor - in Western society in the
sixteenth century, suffered a gradual decline in the seventeenth, recovered to a certain
extent in the eighteenth, and went into free fall throughout the nineteenth and part
of the twentieth century. The consolidation of democracy has been accompanied by
an increase in Spain’s external role consistent with its relative share of power on the
international stage - we are a medium power - and conditioned by a historical heritage
that still weighs on our political elite and our society. However, viewed from an overall
perspective, the trajectory of the last decades is extremely positive.
It is also important that programme and institutional development should attract
academic interest. It is further proof of the consolidation of security and defence
studies in Spanish Universities. And it allows for the creation of synergies between
the fields of national defence, security and external affairs, and the field of university
research and teaching.

En busca de una Estrategia de Seguridad Nacional offers an example of that win-win
relationship. Its author, General Miguel Ángel Ballesteros, director of the Spanish
Institute of Strategic Studies, has a long professional background in the Armed Forces
and Defence and also as an academic, which allows him to combine the knowledge
acquired by his practical experience with the rigour of scientific methodology. The
book based on his doctoral thesis, which received the Extraordinary Doctorate Award,
makes a very relevant contribution to the area of security studies and is of interest to
those in political and technical spheres who design and implement national security
strategies.