The question of air superiority between Greece and Turkey in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean stems back to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 according to Vassilis Nedos in Monday’s Kathimerini, where he writes, “Greece is gradually getting the upper hand in the air”.
Turkey had up until recently, more capacity, (if not total strategic superiority), but the scales seem to have tilted to Greece’s side.
“Even if Turkey were to extract its aircraft modernisation program from Washington it would take its air force many years to catch up with the backlog that has been created since it withdrew from the F-35 program” Nedos writes.
There is new tension within the American political system over whether to approve the sale of 40 new F-16s and the modernisation of 80 of the Turkish Air Force’s existing fighters.
The US seems less inclined to support Turkey as it did in the past. Even thought U.S. interests require Turkey as an ally. Turkey and Greece are both NATO members – Turkey was seen a key bulwark against communism in the Cold War and the Greek Civil War 1945-1949 was the first hot war of the Cold War.
Recently though, Turkey has become an annoyance to Washington, the populist Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s anti-western, anti-Isreal posturing, tailored for domestic audiences, are not welcome in a more chaotic world order with an assertive China and a belligerent Russia. The US Turkey relationship is prickly.
Greek-American lobbyists seem at least in Greek media, (hard to determine), more successful than in the past in building friendlier sentiments towards Greece in Washington, in the Democrats and Republicans. This has much to do with Greece’s abandonment of populist anti-US and anti-Israel rhetoric from the 70s and 80s and a younger cohort of American Greek lobbyists and community leaders.
In Greece the former socialist Syriza government, and the conservative New Democracy government have coalesced to build a more pragmatic and sustainable cross-party foreign policy architecture, with a tight focus on the Southeast Mediterranean, Balkans, Middle East,and Asia.
While Europe is critical to Greece and there is no question that Greece benefits from its EU membership, Hellas is no longer only focused on making sure the Europeans see them as ‘European’. Greece feels more comfortable on leveraging on its historic role as a conduit between east and west.
Germany’s cold indifference and Protestant built ethic to finances, spilled at times into borderline racist tropes of Greeks in their media and political rhetoric, during Greece’s catastrophic economic crisis of 2011-2015, (and acquiescence by Catholic Europe), has not been totally forgotten by the Greeks.
The US under President Obama spurred on by Greek-American lobbyists, and the work by Greek Australian and Greek Canadian Diaspora lobbying their own Anglosphere nations in support of Greece dented some Germany’s demands.
Add to that Chinese investment into Greece, and cooperation with India more recently, has seen Greece play a new version of its pre-modern role of being eastern and western. Greeks dealing with India, China, and the Middle East is culturally natural, and has been set in process since ancient times.
New Democracy government’s opposition to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is in sharp contrast to the not so subtle support Greece provided former Serbian president, Slobodan Milošević in his war of aggression against states in former Yugoslav who sought independence. Milošević instigated the brutal Balkan Wars of the 1990s and Greece stood out of the EU, and US positions. A medieval traditional inclination to support the Christian Orthodox fraternity has not risen again, except in the hard right and old communist parties.
The Prespa agreement reached in 2018 between Greece and (what is now) North Macedonia, resolved a long-standing dispute between Greece and its northern neighbour over nomenclature. Again, this is a sign of Greece’s pragmatic reassessment of its historic positions, and approaches, a Greece less inclined to visceral nationalist posturing – a ratter recent development, from around the 1821 Revolution.
Greece seems a more comfortable as a mediterranean nation no longer seeking to look or be European, or western European. A more serious nation in the region, and one that now claims dividends in military and economic terms.
Of greater importance to Greece’s new, more robust military capacity, is the deeper relations between Greece, Israel, Egypt and Cyprus. The relationship with Israel has resulted in joint military exercises, investments by Israel in Greece and increased tourism from Israel to Greece.
A recognition of the two nations’ cultural, regional and historic commonalities – both diasporic states – has laid to rest (one hopes) the anti-Semitic sentiments of the Orthodox right, and undergraduate anti Israel rhetoric of the left framed as support for the Palestinian cause(s).
Greece wants peace in the Middle East but long gone are the once open arms policy to the PLO and PLA, particularly as many in the Greek political community felt betrayed by the Palestinians’ open support for Turkey and Erdogan.
Moves by both left and conservative governments in Greece to recognise historic Jewish Greek communities, (many of them ancient), and the decimation of the Jews of Thessaloniki by the Nazis, has created a more substantial relationship between Israel and Greece.
Underscoring the bonhemie between Israel, Greece, Egypt and Cyprus are the shared drilling rights over the Goliath gas reserves in the Mediterranean. All this has made Turkey’s prime minster Mr Erdogan look like the odd man out.
Mr Erdogan’s unilateral meddling in Libya, his mixed responses to Russia and China, and instrumentalization of the refugee crisis, has lost him friends in the EU and the US. Worse it has lost Turkey one of its deepest friendships, Israel.
France in looking to assert itself, has weighed its support behind Greece. It has leveraged on its historical influence over North Africa and Lebanon (once colonies) and done brisk business selling Greece new and used jet fighters, and frigates. Greece just received six used planes from the French air force this year, it will take another six next year and has ordered an additional six new Rafale jet fighters to build a squadron of 24.
Nedos in his Kathimerini article says Turkey operates 260 F-16s and 19 Phantoms. F-16s in Block 30, Block 40 and Block 50 configurations entered the Turkish Air Force in 10 stages between 1987 and 2012. In 2002, Ankara joined the Joint Strike Fighter program, which evolved into the fifth-generation F-35 fighter. Turkey ended up ordering 100 F-35As, participating in the program with its defence industry. In 2018, the first Turkish F-35 was test-flown in Fort Worth, Texas, and it was estimated that by 2020, the first six fifth-generation fighters would already be in Turkey. However, in 2019 Turkey was expelled from the program due to its purchase of the Russian S-400 anti-aircraft systems.
While Ankara now waits for approval for the modernisation of its F-16s, the purchase of new ones and renewed access to spare parts, Athens has moved ahead.
Greece has a total of 153 F-16s, of which 83 are being converted into Vipers, six French Rafales (with another 18 to be received by 2024), 24 Mirage 2000-5s and 34 F-4E Phantoms. Of the 153 F-16s, 38 belonging to the Block 50 configuration will be upgraded, while among the Block 30s, some will continue their deterrent work and others will be converted into training planes for new pilots in the Aegean.
In 2023 negotiations with the US on the F-35 are expected to start with the aim of landing the first (of the 20+20 requested) in Greece in 2027-28.
Furthermore, the addition of new Italian M-346 trainers to the Kalamata training centre are making the Hellenic Air Force a power to be reckoned with across the Eastern Mediterranean region.
How the new balance of power in the region plays out is hard to tell. Mr Erdogan continues to conjure regressive visions of a new type of Ottoman imperialism, as the Turkish economy suffers, and secular and progressive Turks are harrased, jailed or exiled. He seeks to extend influence over the Muslim world by turning Agia Sophia into a mosque, and making references to the explosion and destruction of Greek communities in Turkey in 1922, not exactly great for relations with Greece.
Many urban middle class anti-Erdogan Turks also now seek sanctuary in Greece, and are termed ‘traitors’ by Mr Erdogan.
What is clear though is that Greece’s more pragmatic, less nationalistic foreign policy, has resulted in a more potent and modern air capacity, and better relations with all, bar Turkey.
Regardless, Greece’s will need to plan for a post-Erdogan Turkey, while subtly looking for a strategy of rapprochement, or at least a way of talking with Mr Erdogan. What no one can afford is another Greco-Turkish war.