Safeguarding vital interests

Certain European officials have been annoyed by Greece's intention to spend a little more than a billion euros to upgrade its fleet of F-16 fighter jets. Part of their annoyance obviously arises from the fact that Greece will be paying the Americans carrying out the project with money borrowed from Europe. But some countries haven't understood that Greece is not planning to buy new aircraft, just upgrade some of the old ones, obviously because it doesn't have the funds to make a major purchase.

Nevertheless, the main reaction has been one of intense irritation. To begin with, though, even if a country is under supervision from creditors, it will still take certain decisions that are dictated by its national interest. Sure, there is fat that can be trimmed from the national defense system and the heads of the armed forces know exactly what needs to be done to rationalize...