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18.12.2020.           Why we need to stop relying on foreigners

1. We must admit that we modern Greeks are very gullible, especially to the words of foreigners, despite the fact that most of the time these do not match their actions. And this has to some extent led us to the voluntary loss of our self-confidence, which the Prime Minister recently spoke about in Thessaloniki.

2. However, we must at some point understand that any of our movements must be guided by rationality based on the real data we obtain from the stance of International Actors on events not only of the last moment, but of a much broader period, the longer it is, the better and more reliable the conclusions we can draw.

3. It is now quite some time since Turkish provocation and revisionism have surpassed all precedents. So instead of looking at how we should react rationally, we are – based on emotion – more focused on waiting for help from abroad which is increasingly delayed in appearing according to our own wishful thinking (WISHFUL THINKING). This is something that should concern us seriously because it has a direct relationship with the assessments we make which more and more often prove to be unrealistic. And this is because they are simply not based on rationality but only on emotion.

4. I will give here some typical examples of this Greek tactic of "thinking" which constantly leads us to constant disappointments:

a) The continuous EU summits, through which we expected and continue to expect the imposition of sanctions against Turkey for its blatantly sheepish and provocative behavior (October, November, December 2020 and now March 2021), without wanting to understand how difficult what we are asking for is.

b) The results of the elections in the US, where a large part of public opinion wants to believe that the change of guard in the White House will have a very beneficial effect on our interests, according to most of the media.

c) The imposition of sanctions by the US on Turkey, because despite American warnings it decided to acquire the Russian S-400 anti-missile system, which also came after a sufficient period of time, while American legislation provides for them directly in cases where US interests are directly harmed. Many even argue that these sanctions are also the touchstone for our salvation from Turkish revisionism and that they will pave the way for sanctions to be imposed on Turkey by the EU as well.

5. To put it bluntly, we must understand that the whole issue, apart from being geopolitical, is mainly economic in nature and therefore none of the foreign leaders is going to oppose the economic interests of their country for the sake of Greece. And I will explain right away why:

a) US foreign policy has been stable and consistent over the last 70 years since the creation of NATO until today and aims to contain Russia as much as possible, which is why Turkey is an important ally and a bulwark against Russian expansion in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean. In fact, in the last decade, the US has realized that it has another serious front to face, China, where it seems to be putting more and more weight. Therefore, the US will try in every way not to lose Turkey and will exercise all its influence so as not to lead it into Russia's arms. Especially now that it has already begun to turn towards Moscow with the acquisition of the S-400 and its announcements that it may also acquire Russian fighter jets after the suspension of the receipt of the F-35 fighter jets by the US, which was taken as the first measure of sanctions for the acquisition of the S-400. The time has come for Turkey to realize the second set of US economic sanctions that will hit its Defense Industry hard, not only in terms of its self-sufficiency but also its exports, since most of it relies on American technology that will stop being provided for future contracts. The US has not shown since the time of the American pastor's detention in Turkish prisons that it has the ability to destroy its fragile economy within a week, as President Trump had announced, which was how he achieved his release. And the Turkish President may be overly ambitious, but he is not naive and will not dare to take such a step towards Moscow, because he and his country are at risk of annihilation. But it is certain that he will attempt to play the game of the oriental bazaar that he knows so well, in order to obtain as many exchanges as he can to appease his neo-Ottoman ambitions. And these exchanges, we can be sure, will not be in our interest, regardless of the fact that President Biden will soon take Trump's place!

b) The EU, on the other hand, has shown that it is not willing to agree to serious sanctions against Turkey for the simple reason that on the one hand, they have huge transactions with it that they certainly do not want to lose. [1] On the other hand, a large number of European banks are very seriously exposed to Turkey's debt. [2] as Professor Notis Marias explains in his analysis in a very well-documented article dated 15.12.2020 [3], which every reader deserves to read, to understand that none of our EU partners wishes to commit suicide for the sake of Greece. In fact, any questions about the change in France's tough stance towards Turkey will be answered there, which despite its unacceptable rhetoric against President Macron, preferred to soften his stance significantly, realizing that the stakes of the BELHARRA frigates of 3.5 billion Euros for Greece are very small in comparison to the exposure of French Banks to the Turkish economy of 29 billion Euros.

6. Therefore, the whole problem is clearly a matter of vital interests of each of those to whom we look for help and based on this pattern we must also react, since like good students we have done all our duties as advised by our Allies and Friends, but despite this we do not see the expected results. So here is the stake.

"So we must not have done something correctly, or we must have failed to do something in time, and so our Allies and Friends do not take us seriously, assuming that someday we will mature and understand what we can expect from them and what not. Therefore, they deliberately drag the issue from one session to another, gaining time, because we have simply given them the impression that we can expect more."

7. As aware citizens, following current events from a wide range of media outlets, both those close to and those in opposition to the Greek Government, as well as reputable media outlets abroad, we observe the following failures of ours, which the sooner we admit and decide to remedy, the better for our country:

a). While we very rightly decided to procure an aircraft GUST from France along with their weapons and their Continuous Support as well as that of the M-2000/-5 aircraft and we were moving towards a Strategic Agreement with France to secure the BELHARRA frigates with an intermediate solution of FREMM frigates (both of which had been successfully evaluated by the Navy as the best solution) we recoiled, listening to the Americans who, on the one hand, refuse to hand over the ARLEIGH cruisers to us-BURKE which we repeatedly asked them for, on the other hand they decided to procure the Italian version of the FREMM frigates for their own NavyWhat a joke! Here, however, we should consider that in this way we have also weakened France's stance on our interests, because a Strategic Agreement with France beyond the ships of the interim and permanent solution, which would be accompanied by their weapons and their Continuous Support, could in fact have a much more extensive economic impact, if it also included the value of the Skaramangas Shipyards, which were recently valued at 15 billion Euros during the recent bidding process. [4], and a series of facilities for the French Fleet on islands in the SE Aegean (similar to that of Souda for the USA) which in total gives a fairly similar or even greater equivalent than that of the exposure of French banks to Turkish debt. Thus, we estimate that France's position would have been much more positive at the recent December summit and although it could not have changed the final outcome, we would have at least secured our backs with additional considerable hard power and consequent deterrent capacity against Turkey, giving a double message to the outside world:

(1). To Turkey, we have the will to form other Alliances besides NATO, which does not support us against our neighbor, as we have already done in a lighter form with Israel, Cyprus, Egypt and the UAE, faithfully applying the doctrine CI VIS PACEM PARA BELLUM. [5] , knowing that our European Partners will deliberately delay any decisions to protect their own interests.

(2) And to the Americans, that if they are not willing to provide us with the weapons we want, we can obtain them from elsewhere, so that they will consider us more when we ask for something that we believe they have and can help us.

b). Expansion of our territorial waters in the first phase to 10 nautical miles so that it is fully harmonized with our national airspace as we have agreed within the framework of NATO [6], so that we have the right on our side when we present the Turkish violations to NATO and do not find ourselves in the unpleasant position of hearing that the Alliance recognizes national airspace equal to the extent of our territorial waters, which is 6 miles.  This is our unilateral right under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) [7] which has already been exercised by all the countries that signed the Convention except us. Therefore, we should not fear Turkey's CASUS BELLI, when we exercise our legal right like 156 other countries and especially at the moment when our Partners and Allies are indifferent to our justified complaints about Turkey's transgressive behavior. Since they are indifferent and do not give the importance they should to our appeals, wanting to lead us to a comprehensive negotiation with Turkey in order to have their peace of mind and defend their own interests, we must defend our sovereign rights by strengthening our territorial integrity as much as possible and acting in accordance with International Law, things for which no one can accuse us. But such a move would send another resounding message to Turkey, namely that it is better to stop the provocations because if it continues them, we reserve the right to create for it the suffocation that it absolutely does not want, by expanding our territorial waters and our airspace to 12 miles. This is also the reason that for such a message to make sense, we must have secured sufficient hard power, which only France can offer us at this moment. And it is better to rethink the whole issue because the international situation is extremely fluid and a sensible tactic would be to have already reached a Strategic Agreement with a military assistance clause, now that France is interested in its own reasons for thisWe must also not forget that the now It matters because, the fluidity of the geopolitical situation is enormous, but nevertheless bilateral agreements are much easier to uphold than multilateral ones (See NATO & EU).

c). Acceleration of the delimitation of the EEZ with Cyprus, which should normally have preceded that with Egypt years ago, even before the Turkish-Lybian Memorandum., because now the situation with President Sisi is good, but in the future nothing is certain, if for example the Muslim Brotherhood prevails again in Egypt. And this is because we constantly observe Ankara's pirate and blatant proposals of blatant violation of International Law, when after the Turko-Lybian memorandum, it tries to create corresponding faits accomplis in order to strengthen its long-standing demands, offering Egypt and Israel successively the delimitation of the EEZ, with the argument that in this way they gain much more maritime space than they have agreed to with Cyprus to date, as Angelos Syrigos, Associate Professor of International Law & Foreign Policy at Panteion University, presented to us very vividly at ELISME recently [8].

d).  Decision to use the right of veto (VETO) at the next EU summits without phobic syndromes. We recently saw at the November 2020 summit that the VETO of Poland and Hungary had extremely beneficial results for these two countries, which while systematically infringing on the freedoms of their citizens and the EU wanted to punish them by prohibiting them from securing credits for the coronavirus from the common fund, managed not to lose these credits, by presenting a VETO to the EU for the non-approval of the total amount and thus ensured that the issue of the infringement of the rights of their citizens would be examined at a later time. It is certain that if we had insisted with a VETO together with Cyprus at the October summit on the non-imposition of sanctions on Lukashenko's Belarus, if sanctions were not applied to Turkey, we would certainly have achieved more, as happened with Poland and Hungary recently. We just need to acquire the maturity to use VETO when there is a serious stake for our own interests, and not to act like good guys at summits so that they don't mischaracterize us, because that's how they never take us into account. So at the next summit in March 2021, we will have to very carefully see how we will use VETO together with Cyprus and as many other countries as we can convince (e.g. France, Austria, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands) for stricter sanctions on Turkey, if they insist on approving favorable regulations on issues of Turkey's Customs Union with the EU. [9], because this is an indirect but very strong way of financing its fragile economy, as journalist Kyra Adam has presented very thoroughly in many of her recent articles.

8. Many important personalities, experts and analysts of the political-military situation in our region, but also of the international geopolitical chessboard, have very clearly conveyed in all tones, that in the event of an incident or even war with Turkey, we will be alone. We must therefore understand that we must first of all rely on our own forces, with which we must ensure as quickly as possible our hard and soft power, from wherever possible in the given period of time, without inhibitions and phobic syndromes, because all our nominal Partners and Allies are primarily interested in their own interests and practically indifferent to ours, limiting themselves to continuous promises, postponements and fine words, which unfortunately we each understand in retrospect that they have no real impact.

9. Of course, someone may say that “you are telling us all this nicely, but after the celebration” and to a certain extent they may be right. However, the analysis and conclusions that a simple citizen like the signatory can draw should have been evident for a long time by the Government Services that have so many resources at their disposal, as long as the study and exploitation of the available data are carried out in a timely manner. We will also not disagree with the fact that the inaction of at least the last few years on serious issues such as the Greek-Turkish relations, the EU, the Economy and recently the coronavirus, have created a whole mountain of demands for the current Government that it must manage immediately and simultaneously, which admittedly is not an easy task at all.But its parliamentary power and the trust it continues to enjoy from the citizens force it to make the difficult decisions it needs in the shortest possible time. MONASTERY OF, if he wants to stay in History!

Lieutenant Colonel (MA) Retired Dimitrios M. Petrides (22nd SMA, class of 1974)

Mechanical Engineer, University of Patras (1981)

Aeronautical Engineer US NAVAL Postgraduate School (1986)

Representative of Greece on the Board of NAMSA (now NSPA 2001-2004)

Aviation Program Manager NATO Support & Procurement Agency (NSPA 2009-2017)

Member of the Hellenic Aviation Academy (HAA), the Scientific Association of Aeronautical Engineers (ESA), the Icarus School Alumni Association (SASI), the Hellenic Institute for Strategic Studies (ELISME) & the Hellenic Institute for Holistic Education

Member of the Board of Directors of the Panhellenic Military Federation (POS)