Cem Gürdeniz warns Greece over 'Shield of Achilles': Becoming Israel's forward outpost

Retired Admiral Cem Gürdeniz shared notable assessments on his social media account regarding Greece's public debt and the military relations it has developed with Israel.

Gürdeniz stated that despite Greece's public debt, which stands at approximately 138 percent of its national income, its shift toward the approximately $4 billion "Shield of Achilles" project based on Israeli-made systems is not merely an expensive armament choice.

Noting that Israel is increasingly turning Greece into a military partner and one of its forward elements in the Eastern Mediterranean as part of an indirect balancing strategy against Turkey, Gürdeniz emphasized that Greek-Israeli military relations have now gone beyond arms sales.

"Relations are moving beyond arms sales"

According to Gürdeniz, military relations between Greece and Israel are progressing toward exercises, intelligence, operational coordination, and a quest to limit Turkey's naval and air power.

However, Gürdeniz stated that there is a major strategic risk that Athens must see; while calculating that Israel could exert pressure on Turkey through Greece, it ignores Turkey's initiative to expand the geography of a potential conflict and engage in horizontal escalation.

"There is no guarantee that the conflict will remain only in the geography preferred by Israel"

Cem Gürdeniz also made a striking assessment regarding a possible Turkey-Israel conflict.

Stating that there is no guarantee that a Turkey-Israel conflict would remain only in Syria or the Eastern Mediterranean under conditions preferred by Israel, Gürdeniz noted that as Greece becomes an active part of Israel's military strategy against Turkey, the risk of it turning into a natural secondary front and threat area for Turkey in a potential crisis also increases.

Gürdeniz also emphasized that the material foundations of the balance of power should not be forgotten.

He drew attention to the military capacity of Greece and Israel

Stating that Greece does not have a broad and sustainable military-industrial production base, Gürdeniz expressed that Israel, despite its advanced technology and high firepower, has limited resources in terms of the material and human power required for a long-term and wide-front war, as observed in the Iran War.

Stating that the greatest strategic reliance of both countries is the political, economic, and military support of the US and Europe, Gürdeniz said, however, that the world is no longer the world of the unipolar era.

Expressing that the US's relative global superiority and Europe's economic, military, and demographic weight are eroding, Gürdeniz pointed out that these developments bear a historically thought-provoking similarity.

1919 analogy: "The poor Greek people paid the price"

Gürdeniz stated that in 1919, British hegemony also began to pass its peak despite the victory of the First World War.

Expressing that despite this, Greece embarked on an Asia Minor adventure by trusting that the support of great powers would continue, Gürdeniz noted that at the end of the process, the geopolitical calculations of the great powers changed, but Greece, or rather the poor Greek people, paid the military, economic, and social price for this.

"Being Israel's strategic depth may not provide security"

Stating that being Israel's strategic depth today may not provide security to Greece, Gürdeniz warned that, on the contrary, it could drag Greece into an extremely dangerous position where it could face direct confrontation with Turkey for the sake of Israel.

At the end of his post, Gürdeniz emphasized that the fundamental problem for Greece is the real consequences of its security policies and made the following assessment:

"Does being the forward outpost of Israel's strategy to contain Turkey really increase Greece's security, or does it turn it into a country that will pay the price for another state's account against Turkey?

This is the question that needs to be answered."