Deterrence of Military and other Threats

During the writing of this editorial, another security hotspot (re)emerged: two Spanish coastal cities located in Africa (Ceuta and Melilla) were swarmed by several tens of thousands of unarmed Moroccans and other Africans, taking advantage of a recent ruling by Spain's Supreme Court (Rainsford, 2026).The court ruled that "that migrants stopped at sea while trying to reach Ceuta or Melilla, another Spanish enclave, cannot be summarily returned to Morocco" (Rainsford & Curry, 2026).The Spanish, and thus the European Union's, territory in Africa has been contested between Spain and Morocco, a former Spanish protectorate (Foissey, 2026).The majority of the illegal migrants returned to Morocco after Spain deployed military and police personnel.However, some saw this incident as another example of modern hybrid warfare (Dampier, 2026), similar to the Russian usage of "little green men" during the invasion and subsequent occupation of Ukraine's Crimea in 2014 (Senčar, 2021).The Spanish prime minister blamed the incursion on criminal networks involved in human trafficking (Ferreira Santos & Rainsford, 2026).