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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 7/2/15

Greek Crisis Awaits Other NATO Partners

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But there is a good reason why the Troika of creditors are refusing that option. Greece's military extravagance over many years has been an absolute goldmine for German, French and American weapons industries. Out of the $150 billion in military spending by Greece during the years up to 2010, 25 percent of the purchases were from Germany, 13 percent from France and 42 percent from the US, according to figures from SIPRI.

It is no coincidence that Greece's biggest institutional creditors are the German and French governments -- standing at a combined $100 billion. Much of the capital lent to Greece was then spent on German and French weapons systems, such as Leopard tanks and Mirage fighter jets, as well as on American F-16s.

In an interview with the Guardian back in April 2012, Greek parliamentarian Dimitris Papadimoulis accused Berlin and Paris of "hypocrisy" because as he explained: "Well after the economic crisis had begun [in 2010], Germany and France were trying to seal lucrative arms deals even as they were pushing us to make deep cuts in areas like health."

Thus Berlin and Paris were knowingly inflating Greece's debt, which was being used to provide a major market for their defense industries. That revolving door of finance was also spinning with corruption. In October 2013, Greece's ex-defense minister Akis Tsochatsopoulous in the previous PASOK government was jailed for 20 years for his part in a bribery case involving $75 million and dozens of other Athens officials. Germany company Ferrostaal was also forced to pay $150 million for its role in the arms racket, which among other things secured the sale of four Class 214 submarines to Greece worth around $3 billion.

The convenient bogeyman in the Greek scenario was Turkey, which invaded Cyprus in 1975, and was portrayed as a perennial security threat to Greece. Washington, Berlin and Paris, along with corrupt politicians in Athens, played up the Turk threat in order to spin the revolving door of loans and military purchases. The sorry end to that scenario is now a Greek debt crisis which is rebounding with economic rape of the country led by the IMF and the EU powers, primarily Berlin and Paris.

One further irony in this modern Greek tragedy is that the alleged Turk threat accentuated by Washington and its European allies, eliciting massive militarization by Greece, was supposedly attributed to a fellow NATO member -- Turkey. Whatever happened to NATO's Article 5 of collective security during all those years of insecurity?

How much easier then is it for Washington and its NATO allies to present Russia with old Cold War stereotypes as a security threat to eastern Europe and Scandinavia?

And from the surge in military spending by eastern European countries and Scandinavia, that ploy appears to be thriving. The US military-industrial complex and its German, French and British counterparts stand to rake in billions of dollars over the coming years from the junior NATO members who are suitably scared witless from the "Russian spectre."

But if the history of militarism in Greece is anything to go by, a Greek-style debt crisis is in store for the Baltic states, Poland and the Scandinavians.

US-led NATO protection? More like US-led NATO protection racket.

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Author and journalist. Finian Cunningham has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Master's graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal (more...)
 

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