Op-Ed: Greece’s security

By Panagiotis Ioakeimidis*

The crisis in Ukraine, along with other factors confirms that long-term geopolitical competitions have returned to the forefront and are creating new realities in our region

Regional issues, including security issues such as Greek-Turkish relations, are now viewed from the vantage point of this competition.

That, inter alia, makes it necessary (for the US) to normalise relations with Turkey and draw it into the Western camp (as a discrete regional power) and to stop treating it as a country gone astray.

This new reality also colours differently the stance of the US and its relationship with Greece.

Over the last years, we invested and relied to an exceedingly high degree on the US for our security. Yet, we cannot expect much.

Greece must now ask itself, under new conditions, what made it strong after the 1974 post-junta regime change, and what can make it even stronger today. In any event, it is not the relationship with the US, as important as it may be.

Greece became strong mainly due to three factors (beyond domestic economic, political, and deterrent force, and soft power).

Firstly, in 1981 Greece acceded to the then European Economic Community - which evolved into the current EU.

That was a crucial choice of the late PM Constantine Karamanlis designed primarily to bolster Greece's security and independence and to free the country from various past dependencies (while at the same time re-establishing democracy and promoting economic growth).

Secondly, Greece acceded to the EMU/Eurozone and adopted the common currency. It was the euro that made Greece a truly strong state at the core of the EU.

This was the greatest investment in security that Greece made in the EU...