Tuğamiral (E) Dr. Yalçın Özkütük
Recently, the Eastern Mediterranean (EM) Security Complex (region) has been hosting a much broader and spiral-shaped competition. Within this competition, the US and the EU emerge as global actors, while Israel, Greece-Greek Cypriot Administration of Southern Cyprus (GCASC) bloc, Egypt (which appears aligned with this bloc due to its dependency on the US) and their rivals, namely Türkiye and and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) stand out as complex actors. This article the current state of Greece's policy, and consequently the GCASC, has reached in its recent anti-Türkiye policy and the possible consequences thereof.
“Western imperialism, led by the US and including Israel, seeks to force Türkiye into a position where it:
- Disregards its own national interests to remain tied to the Western Bloc, as it was during the Cold War era;
- Refrains from objecting to potential border changes;
- Remains excluded from the regional energy equation;
- Withdraws from Cyprus and accepts GCASC sovereignty;
- And generally retreats from the maritime domain back to the mainland.
Although Türkiye currently faces significant socioeconomic problems, its geopolitical position, elements of national power, and fundamental state characteristics nevertheless render it the dominant power within the complex. Consequently, to impose these demands on Türkiye, Western imperialism requires an actor capable of confronting Türkiye on its behalf, in addition to utilizing domestically engineered political dynamics.”
At this juncture, Israel—acting as both a natural strategic ally and a geopolitical vassal of the US—intervenes. Concurrently, Israel requires additional geopolitically expedient actors within the complex to facilitate the geographical encirclement of Türkiye. This strategic necessity highlights the relevance of the Athens-GCASC axis, a partnership historically instrumentalized by imperialist powers owing to its ‘expansionist' ambitions.
Although the realization of such ambitions is demonstrably unfeasible, Athens perpetuates the perception of a ‘Turkish threat' to consolidate its domestic front, pursuing a strategy predicated on unjust and maximalist demands against Türkiye. In doing so, Greece voluntarily aligns itself with the strategic orbit of the US and Israel, ultimately compromising its own sovereignty and disregarding the welfare of its people—a dynamic that defines the essence of current regional developments.
In light of this core dynamic, which adopts a state-centric approach where states rather than peoples are treated as the principal interlocutors, the main turning points of the issue are examined in the subsequent sections.
Main Objective: Constraining Türkiye
Greece’s fundamental security paradigm is predicated on the following assumption: Türkiye is attempting to become a regional power through its military capacity, the expansion of its defense industry, its military presence in Cyprus, and its strategic initiatives across Libya, Syria, the Caucasus, and Africa—culminating in the Blue Homeland doctrine.
Based on this assumption, Athens' sub-objectives within its broader strategy of containing Türkiye are as follows:
- To minimize Türkiye’s operational sphere in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea;
- To prevent Türkiye from playing a role in the energy geopolitics of the Eastern Mediterranean;
- To ensure the complete withdrawal of Turkish forces from Cyprus.
In the face of these aggressive, externally supported sub-objectives, Türkiye naturally undertakes various initiatives to protect its rights and interests through a state policy that transcends shifting government administrations. Indeed, the Blue Homeland doctrine—which has recently dominated the agenda and serves as a robust barrier against Greece’s primary objective—is the most critical of these initiatives.
Through this doctrine, Türkiye aims to move beyond merely objecting to faits accomplis attempted in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea. By recognizing, albeit belatedly, that the sea constitutes both a domain of sovereignty and a vital instrument for economic prosperity, Türkiye seeks to challenge the status quo, project its maritime presence, and restore an equitable balance of power. Greece, however, portrays this as expansionism, transforming a country's natural right to defend its maritime domains—especially one surrounded on three sides by water—into an accusation. Crucially, Athens leverages this accusation primarily to legitimize its own expansionist ambitions and the military buildup pursued for this purpose.
The Israel-Greece-GCASC “Semi-Alliance”
The power asymmetry that emerged due to Türkiye’s geopolitical rise and Greece’s economic weakening during and after the 2008 financial crisis significantly heightened Athens' threat perception. Unable to balance this threat domestically, Greece pursued an external balancing strategy, moving closer first to Israel and subsequently to Egypt. This initiative, aimed at altering the regional balance of power against Türkiye, eventually materialized within the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF), albeit without transforming into an official military alliance.
Following the discovery of hydrocarbon reserves in the region, the EMGF—originally established under the guise of regional energy cooperation—has increasingly evolved into an Israel-Greece-GCASC semi-alliance. This alignment can be described as an ‘Eastern Mediterranean NATO' or an ‘Eastern Mediterranean Arc,' characterized by permanent, multilayered cooperation, including joint maritime security, the protection of critical energy infrastructure, defense coordination, joint military planning, and rapid intervention forces. Within this framework, Greece and the GCASC contribute their geography and military infrastructure, while Israel provides advanced technological weaponry and intelligence capabilities. Together, they have been instrumentalized by Western imperial interests primarily for deterrence and, if necessary, operational engagement against Türkiye. Concurrently, Athens has viewed this semi-alliance as a facilitating tool to displace Türkiye's strategic weight in Southeastern Europe—capitalizing on Ankara's friction with its Western allies—while leveraging the mechanism to partially alleviate its own economic constraints
Although Greece, whose modern foundations were heavily influenced by Western powers, historically maintained a distant relationship with Israel due to its domestic political dynamics, Athens officially upgraded its relations to full diplomatic recognition in 1990, aligning with the changing global geopolitical landscape. Today, the strategic imperatives driving Greece—and, by extension, the GCASC—to consolidate a semi-alliance with an Israeli administration increasingly isolated and under severe international scrutiny over its actions in Gaza can be summarized across three core areas:
- To procure and modernize air defense systems, missile technology, and electronic warfare infrastructure from Israel in order to mitigate security anxieties regarding Türkiye. In return, Greece offers Israel strategic depth within its sovereign territory and airspace;
- To leverage the natural gas reserves discovered in the Eastern Mediterranean—which, despite being insufficient to become a global game-changer, remain highly significant for littoral states. While these reserves offer a vital alternative for a Europe seeking energy diversification in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine war, their relatively limited volume primarily serves as an instrument for European penetration into the complex. Nevertheless, Greece and the GCASC aim to position themselves as key transit hubs for transporting Israeli gas or gas-generated electricity to Europe, collaborating with Tel Aviv to secure the Eastern Mediterranean energy corridor against Türkiye. Consequently, maritime jurisdiction disputes represent not merely a legal issue but a primary theater of competition in energy geopolitics;
- To institutionalize and strengthen the strategic support provided by the US to Greece and the GCASC by aligning with Israel on nearly every regional issue and offering calculated strategic concessions.
Hosting the Increasing US-EU Presence and Arms Procurement
The US, which has expanded its military cooperation with Greece, has significantly increased its deployment activities, particularly in regions such as Alexandroupoli, Crete, Larissa, and Stefanovikio. This has transformed Greece into both a power projection platform and a logistics hub for the US along the Black Sea, Balkans, Eastern Mediterranean, and Middle East axis. Concurrently, the US lifted its 33-year arms embargo on the GCASC and established various military partnerships there. It is evident that the primary strategic targets of these deployment activities are Russia and Türkiye.
Simultaneously, Greece and the GCASC have established multilayered connections with the EU security architecture. As a matter of fact, these two EU members actively block Türkiye’s inclusion in EU defense initiatives (such as PESCO) and seek to position themselves as Europe’s southeastern defense line by integrating tightly with the French-centered European defense axis. Thus, in confronting Türkiye, Greece and the GCASC rely less on their domestic capabilities and more on the structural power of Israel, the US, and an EU security umbrella spearheaded by France.
What comes next?
The ‘Megali Idea,' which historically targeted the Ottoman Empire and subsequently Türkiye, constitutes the primary reason why Greece has functioned as a veiled colony since its inception. Indeed, the continuity and institutionalization of global powers' interests over Greece enabled the country to expand its territory eastward without engaging in direct warfare. However, this dynamic also caused Greece throughout its approximately 200-year history to endure existential crises that fundamentally shook its political and social order. These included struggles for independence, devastating military defeats, regime changes, foreign occupations, a civil war, Cold War polarization, military coups, junta rule, and chronic economic crises.
Despite this turbulent history, Greece has consistently adhered to the Megali Idea to preserve internal stability and maintain political unity by freezing domestic divisions. Consequently, Greece’s greatest strategic vulnerability today is its voluntary willingness to perpetuate this modern iteration of the Megali Idea, which serves as a useful instrument for Western imperial interests. A nearly identical situation applies to ‘Enosis'—an ideological offshoot of the Megali Idea that constitutes the core strategic vulnerability of the GCASC.
The Megali Idea constitutes a critical vulnerability because the realization of strategic ambitions requires a foundation of intrinsic power, spanning economic capacity, demographics, production, technology, science, and geography. In the absence of sufficient domestic capabilities, reliance on Western imperial interests and the pursuit of unsustainable ambitions through borrowed security invariably result in strategic disappointment.
Indeed, a review of the past century of Greek history demonstrates that Western powers have routinely instrumentalized Greece for their own geopolitical interests or abandoned it during critical junctures. This pattern is evident in events such as the Asia Minor Catastrophe, Athens' temporary withdrawal from NATO's military wing after 1974, and the severe austerity experienced during the 2008 eurozone crisis. Ultimately, it is the Greek population that bears the multidimensional burden of these miscalculations. Since historical patterns frequently repeat themselves, calibrating contemporary foreign policy in light of past experiences would be highly beneficial for Greece.
At the same time, Greece must also comprehend the following reality: Türkiye is not pursuing expansionism; rather, it is merely demonstrating a defensive reflex aimed at safeguarding its vital interests in accordance with the principles of equity. It must be carefully calculated that attempting to deter an interlocutor forced into a position of existential survival, by relying solely on third-party support, may ultimately result in the loss of one's existing assets. Indeed, the recent regional conflict involving the US, Israel, and Iran serves as a contemporary reminder of the traditional proverb regarding the danger of forfeiting what one already possesses in pursuit of unattainable gains.
While making these observations, the decision to reverse course or to persist in error—along with the subsequent calculation of gains and losses—naturally belongs to Athens. Finally, it should be recalled that the tangible gains achieved by Armenia, which shares historical parallels with Greece, through its recent policy shift toward focusing on the interests of the living state rather than perpetuating historical conflicts, could serve as a valuable precedent for Greece in reconsidering its contemporary strategic trajectory.
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