Greek Army

Potential enemies

Greece is a member of the NATO.

In NATO there are two states, permanently preparing to fight each other – Greece and Turkey. If Ankara has many potential enemies (which is considered to be some of border countries as well as Russia, although the Turkish leader Erdoğan declared some time ago “zero problems with neighbors” as a slogan of his foreign policy), whereas for Athens Turkey is still the only possible enemy.

Greece was the first country to gain independence from Ottoman Turkey. The Greeks can’t forgive Turkey the seizure of Byzantine Empire, centuries of the Ottoman rule, the bloody struggle for their freedom and their complete expulsion from Turkish territory after the Istanbul pogrom of 1955, as a result of which the total number of ethnic Greeks in Turkey was reduced from 120 thousand to 1,200 by the end of millennium.

Ottoman Turkey defeated Greece in two Greco-Turkish wars, and if the first, in support of the uprising in Crete, lasted 30 days, the second cost the parties a lot of blood. It lasted 3 years and is considered in Turkey to be the national liberation war, immediately preceding the proclamation of the modern Turkish Republic. It was won with the decisive material support of Soviet Russia, which itself was forced to fight a Greek expeditionary corps, landed during the Civil War with occupation target in southern Russia (modern Ukraine now). The Bolsheviks suggested even the ataman Makhno (whose anarchists fought as a brigade of the 3rd Ukrainian Soviet Army and then against Wrangel) to fight the Greeks in Turkey. Since then, Greece is the main enemy for Turkey (after the collapse of the USSR).

Acquiring new weapons, the parties closely monitor their balance, and it has already happened on many occasions that they were on the verge of an open armed conflict, although they are allies in NATO. There are many reasons for conflicts, and one of them is the confrontation of Greeks and Turks in Cyprus, where under the auspices of Turkey there is an unrecognized Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is kept by Ankara; but even more important is the “Aegean dispute”. Indeed, it’s one of the main reasons for constant conflicts between two states, which almost put them on the brink of fighting. In the Aegean Sea the exact border line between Greece and Turkey has not been determined so far. The reason for this is the proximity of the Greek islands to the Turkish mainland, which does not allow using the unified principle of territorial waters and air space over them in conditions of mutual confrontation. How dangerous the question of airspace is well known to Russians after the Turks shot down the Russian military aircraft in the sky of Syria near Turkish border.

Seven times Turkey and Greece have been on the verge of a war with each other in the years since the Second World War, but the only real fighting clash between the Turkish and Greek armed forces was a dogfight on October 8, 1996. As it became know (20 years later), a Turkish F-16D was shot down by a Greek fighter Mirage-2000, which fired an air-to-air missile.

Of course, the NATO membership hinders the outbreak of war between Greece and Turkey, but tension remains, and it should be remembered that after an attempted military coup in Turkey on July 15, 2016, some of rebels fled to Greece.

 

Structure and strength of the army

Constantly expecting a possibility of a military clash with Turkey, Greece (as well as Turkey) is being out of the general NATO trend to abandon conscription. According to various estimates, the Greek regular army personnel reached 130-170 thousand. In Europe it ranks 9th after Russia, Turkey, Germany, France, Ukraine, Italy, the UK and Spain. Surprisingly, with a population of 11 million, the regular army of Greece is comparing to the one of Poland, where the population is 39 million.

According to the total amount of military equipment (without taking into account the naval forces), Greece confidently takes the third place in NATO after the USA and is going close to Turkey. At the same time Turkey and Greece divide the championship in the alliance for such a dubious indicator as aged equipment. They both have no equal in armored vehicles, artillery and aviation produced in the 60-s, and 70-s.

Of course, Athens is striving to upgrade its equipment due to imports and a sufficiently strong own military-industrial complex: for example, the armored carrier Leonidas is developed by the Greek company ELBO. However, the extremely difficult situation has led to the fact that the programs of rearmament have become “stuck” at various stages of implementation. At the same time, it should be noted that Greece is trying to keep the budget for the army. It’s the only NATO country that acquires a significant amount of military equipment and weapons in Russia.

The Greek army now consists of three services: they are ground, naval and air forces. The Supreme Command of the Greek Armed Forces is the General Staff of the National Defense.

The land forces making 75% of all armed forces are the most numerous. They include four army corps (AK) and two commands. The 1st and 4th AKs are part of the 1st Field Army, the strongest army force of the Greek armed forces, which is responsible for defense of the northern and eastern borders (including the one with Turkey). The 2nd AK serves as a reserve (it also includes navy infantry, landing and airborne brigades). The 3rd AK is a rapid reaction force for action within NATO. The command of the interior region and islands is responsible for defense of the islands in the Aegean Sea; in its composition there are a division on the island of Crete and battalion- or company-size garrisons of other islands. The support command is responsible for the logistics.

The next oldest Greek service is the Navy, designed to carry out sea operations. It’s most affected by economic problems of the country. Some ships and boats are written off ahead of schedule, and construction programs for new ships are significantly slowing down. In 2014, 8 submarines, 14 frigates, 15 missile boats, 12 gunboats, 6 patrol boats, 7 minesweepers, 12 landing ships and 36 auxiliary fleet vessels belonged to the Greek Navy. Last year the Greek Navy has officially taken into service two more diesel-electric submarines of the “Type-214HN” class. By number of submarines, albeit not new, Greece is among 15 countries with the largest submarine fleet.

The Greek Air Force has an impressive number of combat aircraft: uses 250 fighters, 15 transport aircraft, 4 early warning and control planes, 27 helicopters. In addition, 19 anti-submarine and 2 multipurpose helicopters are also used by naval aviation of the Greek Navy, and 7 obsolete American military patrol aircrafts are in storage. Among deficiencies of the Greek Air Force, experts consider insufficient financing, a large number of outdated aircraft and poor combat training.

In general the Greek armed forces are very large, but archaic, insufficiently trained and underfunded. Therefore, it’s very difficult to assess their real potential.