Military expenditure in Greece: Security challenges and economic constraints

Abstract

Against the backdrop of significant political, economic, and security-related changes that have taken place over the past two decades or so, this article examines the factors that affect military expenditure in Greece. Invariably ranked among the countries with the highest defense burden in the EU and NATO, it would appear that such budgetary outlays have mostly been driven by the ability of the economy to allocate scarce resources to national defense and less so by external security considerations.

Arms Racing, Military Build-Ups and Dispute Intensity: Evidence from the Greek-Turkish Rivalry, 1985-2020

“…Furthermore, the results until now ignore that it is not only possible that military spending affects airspace incursions but that the opposite may be the case or that they even affect each other at the same time. On this point, some previous work has actually found that airspace violations have a positive effect on subsequent Greek military spending (Kollias 2004) whereas elsewhere the effect was found to be insignificant (Kollias, Paleologou, and Stergiou 2016). We thus next address this potential issue by modelling the relationship between airspace violations and Greek as well as Turkish military spending as an endogenous process using Vector Autoregression (Enders 2015).…”

“…However, while Turkish military spending is driven solely by security concerns, Greece decision-making on military spending is more restricted due to its European Monetary Union membership (Waszkiewicz 2016). Moreover, the 2009 financial crisis has further limited the ability of the Greek government to direct resources to national defence (Kollias, Paleologou, and Stergiou 2016). Previous studies have emphasized the economic effects of this arms race, particularly the negative effect of high military expenditure on the Greek economy (Antonakis and Karavidas 1990;Antonakis 1997;Dunne and Nikolaidou 2001;Athanassiou et al 2002;Andreou et al 2002).…”

“…These incursions form a salient part of the dispute as they often lead to dogfights between Greek and Turkish fighter planes, have the potential to induce more severe crises, and even affect Greek economic outlooks (Kollias 2004;Athanassiou, Kollias, and Syriopoulos 2006). Just like more violent acts of contestation, airspace violations involve the use of military means to achieve political goals, such as claiming territory or signalling intentions (Pitsoulis and Schwuchow 2014;Owsiak 2015: 56;Kollias, Paleologou, and Stergiou 2016;Williams 2010). Focusing on low intensity conflict, such as airspace violations, thus allows us to more accurately capture varying tensions in an interstate rivalry even if no proper fighting takes place.…”

“…Throughout the 1930s, procurements for the Greek navy were dictated by the expansion of the Turkish navy (Güvenç and Barlas 2003;Fotakis 2010). Likewise, a Greek-Turkish arms race transpired between 1950 to 1989 (Avramides 1997;Kollias and Makrydakis 1997;Paleologou 2002, see also Ocal andYildirim 2009), but the 2009 financial crisis has had a severe impact on the Greek defence budget (Kollias, Paleologou, and Stergiou 2016) and Greece has been unable to keep up with Turkish military expenditure since (see Figure 1). Nevertheless, other studies dispute the findings and instead argue that the two defence budgets operate independently from one another (Georgiou 1990;Stavrinos 1992;Georgiou, Kapopoulos, and Lazaretou 1996;Paparas, Richter, and Paparas 2016).…”

Savunma Harcamaları Açısından Türkiye ve Komşu Ülkelerin Coğrafi Perspektiften Değerlendirilmesi

“…İki ülke arasındaki ilişkilerde yaşanan gelişmeler Yunanistan'ın savunma harcamalarına da yansımıştır. Yunanistan'ın savunma harcamaları (GSYİH) 1990-1999 döneminde %3,5 iken, 2000-2008'de ise %2,9'a gerilemiştir (Kollias, Paleologou & Stergiou, 2016).…”