New Priorities

GREECE’S JANUS-FACED PARADOX GIVES WAY TO EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN ‘GEOPOLITICAL WEST,’ INCLUDING ISRAEL

Summary
In the past 200 years, Hellas has been ambivalent in its geopolitical orientation. It has bounced between West and East, and, as a byproduct of this uncertainty, has also flirted occasionally with the Third World block. Israel’s discovery of natural gas and oil has elevated the Eastern Mediterranean basin to the most important geostrategic priority for Greece and Cyprus. Exploration, drilling and distribution of energy resources, and the need to safeguard them, require development of special strategic relationships with Israel and the U.S. Western Europe is undependable, as history and the recent economic crisis have again demonstrated. This leads conceptually to the notion of ‘Geopolitical West’ which encompasses Israel, and also to the end of Greece’s historic ambivalence.

 It was viewed primarily as Western Europe’s huge summer resort area during the post-war period of the 20th century. 

The Germans, the Brits, the French, the Swedes, and lately the Russians, have all brought much needed tourist cash. This will continue.                                                  

But Eastern Mediterranean, with its natural gas and hydrocarbons is re-directing Greece and Cyprus to embrace a new priority in politico-economic and strategic actions. Israel’s discovery of huge gas deposits in the Levant Basin, and its readiness to sign trade and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) agreements, demonstrated to Hellenes that it is time to explore the Eastern Mediterranean whose riches have been suspected for several decades. 

Suddenly, at the dawn of the 21^st century, Eastern Mediterranean’s anticipated riches are becoming the political and strategic focus of Europe despite EU’s squeezing of Greece during the debt crisis. Since the debts themselves are nothing new, it is possible the merciless squeezing is also inspired by interest in the anticipated energy supplies. 

European powers are dependent on gas and oil imported from Russia, the largest exporter of such energy in the world.  Germany and the Netherlands are Russia’s best customers according to the U.S. Energy Department.  Europe has awakened to the possibility that Russia’s near monopoly can be diminished through the new gas and oil source, the Eastern Mediterranean, an area within the EU. Israel and two EU members, Cyprus and Greece, may become major suppliers and distributors. 

For Europe and the U.S., this alternative to Russian supplies elevates the strategic value of Eastern Mediterranean basin.

It also enlarges the notion of “West” to include Israel not only culturally, but geographically, too, because Israel adopts the basin as a strategic asset essential to its existence. The basin’s energy resources are not only a trade asset, but for the first time since its founding as a state, Israel’s energy supply is liberated from enemies sworn to its destruction.

Any threat to Israel’s legitimate rights to the energy supply sources challenges its  independence and constitutes a casus belli. Turkey got the message when it attempted to place an obstacle in the drilling operation launched in partnership between Israel and Cyprus.  The powers, including the U.S., EU, and Russia, openly supported the exploration and drilling rights of Israel and Cyprus.

The Eastern Mediterranean waters no longer separate, but bind together the shores of Israel with Greece and Cyprus at the point of the boundaries of their Exclusive Economic Zones.  The “Geopolitical West” is a reality on the ground.

For Hellenes, the four posits of this new Geopolitical West doctrine are:

       1. In the past two centuries, Greek strategy was a Janus-Faced paradox, torn between West and East in strategy and in foreign and domestic politics. In recent decades, Greece also flirted with the Third World camp; 

      2. The “Geopolitical West” strategy has been developing de facto in the past two years. This concept embraces Israel which is geographically in the Middle East. It recognizes the Eastern Mediterranean basin as the geopolitical priority for Greece and Cyprus. Israel, for the first time in its history, is shaking off its dependence on sworn enemies for natural gas and oil. It also opens new trade horizons with Europe and Asia;

       3. For Greece and Cyprus, the new priority requires the capability to deal with  military threats from their major adversary in the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkey, and potentially active partners of Turkey.

      4. For their own security, Greece and Cyprus must develop strong ties with Israel and also the U.S. which is the Western power that can guarantee the unimpeded exploration and flow of natural gas and oil.

For Greece, the new priority signals the end of a peculiar political/cultural/economic period that is almost 200 years old. It was characterized by the ambiguous political posturing begun by Hellenes before and after the Greek War of Independence (1821-1829) and emphasized in domestic politics aggressively in the past 70 years. 

Background of Janus-Faced paradox

The past was a Janus-Faced paradox. Janus, the Roman god, had one head with two back-to-back faces. He was the god of opposites, transitions, beginnings and endings. Greece, too, has vacillated wearing two faces – each looking simultaneously in the opposite direction. This Greek paradox was not an attempt to deceive. It demonstrated a lack of consistent strategic planning.

One side of Greek Janus focuses in the direction of the country’s multi-millennial cultural orientation. This orientation is in synch with Greece’s tradition as a foundation of Western Civilization.

As philosophers and artists affirmed during the 15^th century Renaissance, it was classical civilization that paved Europe’s way out of the 1,000-year-long Dark Ages. 

Embraced even today

This deeply felt relationship continues undisputed.  As late as February, 2012, it was heralded in cities all over Western Europe by pro-Greece demonstrators. The mayor of a small Italian town, near Salerno, expressed a conviction frequently repeated in France, Germany and Spain today: “Greece gave us philosophy and science, poetry and literature, theater and music. Greece gave us civilization, and Italy and Europe are not its brothers, but its children.”

The opposite face of Greece targeted a subcontinent of East European countries in the Eastern Orthodox tradition shared with Russia.  This was the camp that cheered Greek struggles for liberation after 400 years of Ottoman rule.

It was Russia that supported the Greek Diaspora in Odessa which inspired and birthed It the War of Independence against the Ottoman Turks. The battles of this war were often led by Greek officers of the Czar. And it was his army and diplomats who also supported uprisings in other Eastern Orthodox countries enslaved by the Ottomans, among them Montenegro, Moldava and Wallachia. 

Even modern historians differ in their geopolitical positioning of Greece, some placing it with the East and some with the West.

On the one hand you have the late American Samuel Huntington (Clash of Civilizations) who leaves Greece, European Russia, and all Orthodox countries out of his definition of the “West.”  This highly regarded historian places them all in the Eastern camp. Incidentally, he excludes Israel, too. In other words, he pulls the rug -- the foundation of Western Civilization -- from under the “West.”

On the other hand, you have the equally celebrated British historian Niall Ferguson (Civilization: The West and the Rest), a Times magazine “100 most influential” in 2004. His assertion: Without “the stewardship” of Byzantium – among other contributors –  civilization of Classical West would have been lost during the Dark Ages, and it “could not have been reborn as it was in the Italy of the Renaissance.” 

It is no wonder that Greece has remained uncertain, and in its uncertainty it has looked in two different directions.

This dichotomy has been the foundation of Greek political ambivalence. It is an ambivalence fueled by third parties on various occasions in history. Such was the Bismarkian Realpolitik of the British and French whose armies backed the Ottomans several times in the 19^th   and early 20^th centuries, both against Greece and Russia. The Germans were not far behind, having served Kemal Ataturk and the Young Turks, including their role as genocide advisors against Armenians and Greeks in the early 1900s.

The byproduct of this ambivalence was Greece’s second-tier strategy, the aimless flirting with Third World countries, many of them Muslim, especially in the late 1970s through the 1990s.  Third World politics is best recognized by what it rejects in Western World politics, not by what it is able to accomplish for its followers.

Finally, Greece’s ambivalence can be resolved in a truly classical drama tradition.

Israel: Deus ex machina

Fast forward to the dawn of the 21st century.

West Europe’s leaders have grown beleaguered. The object of their resentment, Russia, and its pipelines originating in Western Siberia and the “stan” regions, are today West Europe’s main suppliers of oil and natural gas. Russia will soon tap into its Eastern Siberia abundant fields to supply China and the rest of Asia. 

Turkey, the “ally” whom Europe refuses to bring into the European Union – “European Common Market” would be a more accurate term– is plotting how to make the EU pay for expensive transcontinental pipelines supplying them energy from Asian regions also controlled by Russia or Iran.

Finally, “O Apo Michanis Theos” descends upon Greece.  That’s what it is called in Greek drama where it was lowered on stage to change the play outcome dramatically. The Romans called it Deus ex Machina. I guess, the Israelis would call it Manna from Heaven. It is the unexpected event or entity from above that provides resolution to an unsolvable situation.

In 2009, the Israelis again strike large deposits of natural gas deep in the Eastern Mediterranean – Leviathan field is being drilled eventually to about 21,000 feet. Soon afterwards, the Israelis invite Hellenes in Greece and Cyprus to join them in drilling.

The future of Greece is in this new priority, the Eastern Mediterranean basin, which requires development of two parallel tracks:

Implementing ‘Geopolitical West’ concept

One track in this “Geopolitical West” priority is Israel which is Eastern Mediterranean basin’s super power. It is Western in culture, democratic and highly educated. It is a nuclear power. Even though its population barely reaches 7.5 million, it has one of the world’s most advanced weapons industries. It also has an economy that is growing faster than that of Western Europe.

Greece’s still developing relationship with Israel provides Greece with defense weapons and options; trade opportunities; business and development models; technological know-how, and Eastern Mediterranean energy partnership options in the Aegean sea. 

On the other hand, it provides Israel energy production partnerships with new locations in the Mediterranean, even outside its own Exclusive Economic Zone; anti-terrorism/security support; military support in air- and sea-space; and much needed active friends in a hostile environment, as shown in the “flotilla” incident challenging  Israel’s boycott of Gaza. The benefits package for the two countries is wrapped in tourism and common-culture ties.

Israel has already recognized its broader Eastern Mediterranean potential: It is pursuing a China option.  As reported, Israel has discussed the sale of gas and oil to China through the pipeline that runs from the Mediterranean port of Ashkelon to Eilat in the Red Sea. And of course, just as Israeli gas production can be channeled to Western Europe through pipelines crossing Greece, so can Greek production be channeled to Asia through pipelines crossing Israel.  

The second track in the “Geopolitical West” concept lies in the traditional Western world, but not so much on Europe, even though Greece and Cyprus are EU members.  This priority’s future is tied to the U.S. and America’s strategies seeking to provide a strong security and anti-terrorism umbrella to Africa, the Middle East and Europe.

Greece must cross the line it has so far chosen to ignore: It must offer to the U.S. exclusive major security and anti-terrorism options in the Aegean and the Ionian seas, and in the Balkans. 

It must support America in U.N. politics and in European-Balkan-Eurasian pursuits. Greek political parties have got to end the political theater of the absurd, the staged anti-Americanism cloaked in pro-democracy slogans in the streets of Athens.

There is no longer time for ambivalence or aimless flirting with the other side. Clarity of vision, the ability to comprehend U.S. interests and strategic goals, has been particularly critical since 9/11.

Turkey often works against important American interests; it has been descending into Neo-Ottoman darkness; it is boasting a pretentious gun-boat diplomacy in the Eastern Mediterranean, and is continuing to play the two ends against the middle, as in last century’s wars. In the Arab Mediterranean, political uncertainty reigns supreme.

From a Greek perspective, Germany, historically an undependable ally, has wrecked the already weak structure and vision of a European Union. Germany is unwilling to provide its partners with aid, the kind it so generously received from America after it lost the world war it created and almost destroyed Europe.

But Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville’s America, still true, with its unique sense of exceptionalism, is the only power historically willing to give a second chance to a recovering weak country – and has done so even to its own enemies.

It is with this realization -- understanding America’s pragmatism as much as its ideological foundations and pursuits -- that Greece can appeal to America in order to lift itself from its present quicksand. Culturally in the same wagon, now Greece must pursue the opportunity to travel down the American track.