Spanish Professional Writing
While the United States Army was out on the high plains, fighting the War of 1812, and erecting forts on the east coast, Spanish professional discourse was well-established. Reaching back into the archives of Military Review, it is not uncommon to find citations from journals published by the Spanish Army.
Our allies, like the Spanish Army, view professional writing and publishing as a career-progressing catalyst and a professional honor. While the U.S. Army also acknowledges the importance of writing in terms of career progression, it has not—in recent memory—directly valued professional writing with the same fervor as the Spanish Army. From the lens of the United States, understanding our allies’ professional writing is invaluable to our own writing and publishing process. It allows the U.S. to draw relevant comparisons, generate ideas, and extrapolate data as we renew our Army journals.
This article highlights similarities and differences between the Spanish and United States armies’ professional writing cultures and identifies opportunities for Spanish and American collaboration.
The Spanish System
While the histories of the two service cultures towards writing are vastly different, the range of Spanish military publications is similar to those in America: updates for both internal and external consumption about the Army’s units, missions, events, and modernization progress; cultural and historical highlights; professional articles and editorials; and many others.
The Spanish Army’s publication process and standards are established in Spanish Army Technical Instruction (IT) 08/15, Publicaciones del Ejército de Tierra (Army Publications). Its programs are tightly regulated, following an annual battle rhythm of proposal, review, approval, and publication. This efficient and structured system juxtaposed to the United States Army’s decentralized, branch-specific system highlights the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. The Spanish Army’s method allows for meticulous overwatch, but lacks some lower-level empowerment and flexibility, while the U.S. system is decentralized, but encourages Harding Fellows to retain editorial control with only branch oversight.
Within the Spanish army, writers come from every rank and echelon; the writing culture is quite strong. The more widely read and higher-level strategic and operational publications naturally tend to rely on contributions from generals and field grade officers, senior NCOs, and academics. There is a smaller appetite for tactical publications; these are commonly written by junior officers, mid-grade NCOs, and enlisted Soldiers.
It is not an understatement to say writing is everywhere within the Spanish Army—from the company level to the strategic. For example, the Defensa (Defense) magazine serves as the official magazine of the Spanish armed forces, covering all aspects of the Spanish military. In this public affairs product, most articles are written by permanent editorial staff, with additional contributions by academics and general officers.
The Ministry of Defense also has an internal think tank called Instituto Español de Estudios Estratégicos (IEEE, Spanish Institute of Strategic Studies), who’s responsible for the Panorama magazine, similar to the U.S. Army’s Parameters published by the War College Press.
Typical articles in the Army’s premier magazine, Ejército (Army), are authored by colonels, lieutenant colonels, and majors. Ejército’s U.S. Army equivalent is Military Review; both publications are single-reviewed with strategic and operational themes. Smaller branch journals like Memorial de Caballería (Cavalry Journal) or Memorial de Infantería (Infantry Journal) typically include writing by company grade officers and mid-grade NCOs.
Comparing our systems
Both the Spanish and American Armies have large, official publications with clear parallels for themes that are published regularly and frequently. For the Unites States and Spain, these include Military Review and Ejército, respectively—each published every two months. Both armies also have a top-down emphasis on the value of writing as a component of professional competence, consistent with the CSA’s Harding Project and the Spanish Army Chief’s (JEME’s) Liderazgo (Leadership) priorities. Perhaps most importantly, both nations demand professional excellence and non-partisanship in writing, reinforcing the idea that Soldiers perform a function of the state and are always undergirded by national sovereignty, independence, and democratic norms.
In the United States, there is a plethora of podcasts, socials, and apps dedicated to national security and defense. This is not the case for the Spanish Army. The Spanish thought-community on national security has much fewer approachable, online publication venues. It is not uncommon to see Youtube channels or Instagram accounts highlighting American national defense, but Spain has just a single, public-private thinktank focusing on international security and defense issues, the Real Instituto Elcano (Royal Elcano Institute). This creates a hurdle in the realm of readership and audience. However, the Spanish Army streamlines the remainder of the publishing process. The two most important organizations managing the Spanish Army’s non-doctrine publications are the Ministry of Defense (MINISDEF) and the Army Headquarters located in Madrid. The Spanish Army has very strict guidelines which dictate the path of an article based on its destination, whether for public or private (Army-internal) publishing.
A few examples of external publishing include branch-specific journals published by official channels for the general public (see Figure). These are akin to their parallels in the United States, Aviation Center of Excellence’s Aviation Digest for example, and include the following:
Memorial Infantería (Infantry Journal)
Memorial Caballería (Cavalry/Armor Journal)
Memorial Artillería (Artillery Journal)
Memorial Ingenieros (Combat Engineers Journal)
Memorial del Cuerpo de Intendencia (Quartermaster Corps Journal)
Memorial Ingenieros Politécnicos (Polytechnic Engineers Journal)
Memorial de Aviación del Ejército de Tierra (Army Aviation Journal)
Boletín Digital Tierra (Land Online Bulletin)
Revista Historia Militar (Military History Magazine)
Revista Armas y Cuerpos (Armies and Corps Magazine)
La Legión (The Legion Journal)
Boina Negra (Black Beret, an Airborne Journal)
Tropas de Montaña (Mountain Troop Journal)
Despite a tumultuous political history, the Spanish Army’s writing and publishing program is everpresent and robust. Our Army can tear a page from their book in terms of their efficient processes and consistent publishing. The U.S. Army’s enterprise has a bit more agility and adaptability relative to publishing content and Soldier empowerment, but we still have numerous lessons to learn from our partners. The Spanish Army’s bilateral relationship with the U.S. is invaluable and proves to be a timeless source for mutual growth and development, especially in the realm of professional writing.
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Thank you for the great analysis. It is always helpful to compare our systems with other militaries. It did make me wonder if there were any attempts to collect a “best of” writing from foreign journals potentially by the Foreign Military Studies Office. I was thinking about this after reading about interwar German military thought and how closely they paid attention to writings in other countries and translated them into their own journals.
Great information, well done! I might note that historically, West Point initially included only French language instruction, logical for an army that still looked to Napoleon for inspiration and example. Spanish was added after the Mexican-American War, and German was added after the Franco-Prussian War. I was delighted to discover at a Museum of the Confederacy years ago that Robert E. Lee carried with him a copy of the French Army’s manual for cavalry at his last posting in Texas before the American Civil War when he was with the US Second Cavalry regiment.