Posted by “Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.”
Lord Palmerston (English Statesman, 1784-1865)
Today’s post should be a child’s play but in the Republic of Greece (Hellenic Republic) it is not.
Let me at first present a child’a answer to the question. Each sentence marked with “p” is a premise. A sentence marked “c” is a conclusion.
CHILD – BEGINNING
P1. We buy fighter jets to defend our country.
P2. Turkey, the country posing the greatest threat to Greece has many fighter jets.
C1. (interim conclusion) No jets is equivalent to no defence.
P3. Turkey, our arch enemy has already placed an order of 100 F-35 jets and will receive the first batch of them in 2019.
P4. The F-35 is a far superior fighter.
C2. We must buy the F-35, otherwise we will lack significantly in operational capacity, compared to Turkey.
CHILD – END
The child has answered that we cannot afford to have no jets if we are to defend our country, and that we need to buy the F-35 if we want to have operational capability similar to the one Turkey will have when they deploy the F-35.
Instead of that, the Greek Government has decided to “upgrade” the aging F-16 fleet of 120 aircrafts to level F-16V, at a cost of 2.4 billion USD. The relevant deal was announced during Prime Minister Tsipras’ visit to Washington DC in October 2017. This amount of money buys roughly 24 new F-35s (the avergae cost of a F-35 is estimated at 100 million USD).
This deal may be very good for Lockheed Martin, the F-16 manufacturer, who also manufactures the F-35, but is not good for Greece. The US political establishment, the Pentagon and President Trump, naturally, promoted the deal, even pushed Greece to accept it, because this is the way their system works. But they are not the ones running the risk of being attacked by another country in cold blood. They are safe, they are powerful, and in case something bad happens, they make nice statements and talk about peace.
For Greece the situation is not the same. Modern Greece has already suffered the humiliation of Cyprus in 1974. It is clear to all with their eyes and minds open that no one will help Greece in case of a military incident with Turkey. Only Greece will defend itself. If this is so, why has the Greek Government accepted the F-16 deal which qite clearly compromises its defensive capability vis-a-vis Turkey?
Because contrary to Turkey, the Greek Government has no Military Strategy and an aligned Military Procurement Strategy. Due to this, decisions are opportunistic, do not fit into a plan, and, worst of all, do not achieve the prime objective of enabling Greek Defensive Forces to the maximum in order to face the potential threat from Turkey.
The politicians running the country do not understand military risk and conflict, and they conveniently dismiss the fact that Greece can defend itself only if it has the means to do it.
Spending hundreds of billions on loans in order to keep the economy afloat does not make sense if at the same time you do not spend money to keep the country safe from its enemies.
In planning for and organizing the Defence of Greece, the Greek Government has failed miserably. The fact that President Erdogan is in office in Turkey is at the same time a warning and an assurance.
It is a warning in the sense that all things come to an end and that following the Erdogan era the future of Turkey is unknown. It is an assurance in the sense that President Erdogan is not a hot headed fool, quite the opposite. Behind the tough rhetoric he is a realist who takes only calculated risks. Therefore the probability of a hot incident with Turkey is below 50%. There is no imminent threat, but the threat is significant.
This means that Greece may still have time to procure the right type of fighter jets and adopt of Military Procurement Strategy that is up to the level required for the defence of the country.
In closing, I ask all the politicians who have responsibility for the F-16 upgrade contract, to ask themselves if instead of buying F-35s, President Erdogan would ever do such a deal . I would also ask them to explain their view and decision to the Greek Public.