The Turkish Enigma

In my "Net Assessment of the World," I argued that four major segments of the European and Asian landmass were in crisis: Europe, Russia, the Middle East (from the Levant to Iran) and China. Each crisis was different; each was at a different stage of development. Collectively the crises threatened to destabilize the Eurasian landmass, the Eastern Hemisphere, and potentially generate a global crisis. They do not have to merge into a single crisis to be dangerous. Four simultaneous crises in the center of humanity's geopolitical gravity would be destabilizing by itself. However, if they began to merge and interact, the risks would multiply. Containing each crisis by itself would be a daunting task. Managing crises that were interlocked would press the limits of manageability and even push beyond.

These four crises are already interacting to some extent. The crisis of the European Union intersects with the parallel issue of Ukraine and Europe's relation to Russia. The crisis in the Middle East intersects with the European concern over managing immigration as well as balancing relations with Europe's Muslim community. The Russians have been involved in Syria, and appear to have played a significant role in the recent negotiations with Iran. In addition there is a potential intersection in Chechnya and Dagestan. The Russians and Chinese have been advancing discussions about military and economic cooperation. None of these interactions threaten to break down regional boundaries. Indeed, none are particularly serious. Nor is some sort of inter-regional crisis unimaginable.

Sitting at the center of these crisis zones is a country that until a few years ago maintained a policy of having no problems with its neighbors. Today, however, Turkey's entire periphery is on fire. There is fighting in Syria and Iraq to the south, fighting to the north in Ukraine and an increasingly tense situation in the Black Sea. To the west, Greece is in deep crisis (along with the EU) and is a historic antagonist of Turkey. The Mediterranean has quieted down, but the Cyprus situation has not been fully resolved and tension with Israel has subsided but not disappeared. Anywhere Turkey looks there are problems. As important, there are three regions of Eurasia that Turkey touches: Europe, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union.

I have argued two things in the past. The first was that Turkey was an emerging regional power that would ultimately be the major power in its locale. The second was that this is a region that, ever since the decline and fall of the Ottomans in the first quarter of the 20th century, has been kept stable by outside powers. The decision of the United States to take a secondary role after the destabilization that began with the 2003 invasion of Iraq has left a vacuum Turkey will eventually be forced to fill. But Turkey is not ready to fill that vacuum. That has created a situation in which there is a balancing of power underway, particularly between Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

A Proximate Danger

The most violent and the most immediate crisis for Ankara is the area stretching from the Mediterranean to Iran, and from Turkey to Yemen. The main problem for Turkey is that Syria and Iraq have become contiguous battlegrounds featuring a range of forces, including Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish elements. These battles take place in a cauldron formed by four regional powers: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey. This quadrangle emerged logically from the mayhem caught between them.

Each major power has differing strategic interests. Iran's primary interest is the survival of the establishment and in assuring that an aggressive Sunni polity does not arise in Iraq to replicate the situation Tehran faced with Saddam Hussein. Iran's strategy is to support anti-Sunni forces in the region. This support ranges from bolstering Hezbollah in Lebanon, propping up the minority Alawite establishment in Syria led — for the moment — by Bashar al Assad, and assisting the Iraqi army, itself controlled by Shiites and Iraq's Shiite militias. The United States sees Iran as aligned with American interests for the moment, since both countries oppose the Islamic State and Tehran isimportant when it comes to containing the militant group. The reality on the ground has made this the most important issue between Iran and the United States, which frames the recent accord on nuclear weapons.

Saudi Arabia sees Iran as its primary enemy. Riyadh also views the Islamic State as a threat but at the same time fears that an Iraq and Syria dominated by Iran could present an existential threat to the House of Saud. The Saudis consider events in Yemen from a similar perspective. Also in this context, Riyadh perceives a common interest with Israel in containing Iranian militant proxies as well as the Islamic State. Who exactly the Saudis are supporting in Syria and Iraq is somewhat murky, but the kingdom has no choice but to play a tactical and opportunistic game.

The Israelis are in a similar position to the Saudis. They oppose the Iranians, but their main concern must be to make certain that the Hashemites in Jordan don't lose control of the country, opening the door to an Islamic State move on the Jordan River. Jordan appears stable for the moment and Israel and the Saudis see this as a main point of their collaboration. In the meantime, Israel is playing a wait-and-see game with Syria. Assad is no friend to the Israelis, but a weak Assad is better than a strong Islamic State rule. The current situation in Syria suits Israel because a civil war limits immediate threats. But the conflict is itself out of control and the risk is that someone will win. Israel must favor Assad and that aligns them on some level with Iran, even as Israel works with Sunni players like Saudi Arabia to contain Iranian militant proxies. Ironies abound.

It is in this context that the Turks have refused to make a clear commitment, either to traditional allies in the West or to the new potential allies that are yet emerging. Partly this is because no one's commitments — except the Iranians' — are clear and irrevocable, and partly because the Turks don't have to commit unless they want to. They are deeply opposed to the Assad regime in Syria, and logic would have it that they are supporting the Islamic State, which also opposes the Syrian regime. As I have said before, there are endless rumors in the region that the Turks are favoring and aiding the Islamic State. These are rumors that Turkey has responded to by visibly and seriously cracking down on the Islamic State in recent weeks with significant border activity and widespread raids. The Turks know that the militants, no matter what the currently confrontational relationship might be, could transition from being a primarily Arab platform to being a threat to Turkey. There are some who say that the Turks see the Islamic State as creating the justification for a Turkish intervention in Syria. The weakness of this argument is that there has been ample justification that Ankara has declined, even as its posture toward the Islamic State becomes more aggressive.

This shows in Turkey's complex relations with the United States, still formally its major ally. In 2003 the Turks refused to allow U.S. forces to invade Iraq from Turkey. Since then the relationship with the United States has been complex and troubled. The Turks have made U.S. assistance in defeating Assad a condition for extensive cooperation in Syria. Washington, concerned about an Islamic State government in Syria, and with little confidence in the non-Islamic State militancy as a long-term alternative, has refused to accept this. Therefore, while the Turks are now allowing some use of the NATO air base at Incirlik for operations against the Islamic State, they have not made a general commitment. Nor have they cooperated comprehensively with Sunni Saudi Arabia.

The Turkish problem is this: There are no low-risk moves. While Ankara has a large army on paper, it is untried in battle outside of Turkey's 30-year insurgency in its southeast. Turkey has also observed the outcome of U.S. conventional forces intervening in the region and doesn't want to run the same risk. There are domestic considerations as well. Turkey is divided between secular and Islamist factions. The secularists suspect the Islamists of being secretly aligned with radical Islam — and are the source of many of the rumors floating about. The ruling Sunni-dominated Justice and Development Party, better known by its Turkish acronym, AKP, was seriously weakened in the last election. Its ability to launch the only attack it wants — an attack to topple Assad, would appear to be a religious war to the secularists and would not be welcomed by the party's base, setting in motion rifts that could bring down the AKP. An attack on the Sunnis, however radical, complicates relations with the rebel factions in northern Syria that Turkey is already sponsoring. It also would risk the backlash of reviving anti-Turkish feelings in an adjacent Arab country that remembers Turkish rule only a century ago.

Therefore Turkey, while incrementally changing — as evidenced by the recent accord to allow U.S. Predator drones to fly from Incirlik — is constrained if not paralyzed. From a strategic point of view, there appears to be more risk than reward. Its position resembles Israel's: watch, wait and hopefully avoid needing to do anything. From the political point of view, there is no firm base of support for either intervening directly or providing support for American airstrikes.

The problem is that the worst-case scenario for Turkey is the creation of an independent Kurdish republic in Syria or Iraq. That would risk lighting a touchpaper among Kurds in southeastern Turkey, and regardless of current agreements, could destabilize everything. This is the one thing that would force Turkey's hand. However, the United States has historically had some measure of influence among the Kurds in Iraq and also in Syria. While this influence can be overstated, and while Washington is dependent on the Kurdish peshmerga militias for ground support as it battles the Islamic State from the air, it is an important factor. If the situation grew out of control, Ankara would expect the United States to control the situation. If Washington could and would, the price would be Turkish support for U.S. operations in the region. The Turks would have to pay that price or risk intervention. That is the lever that would get Ankara involved.

Added Complications 

The Turks are far less entangled in the Russian crisis than in the Middle East, but they are still involved, and potentially in a way that can pyramid. There are three dimensions to this. The first is the Black Sea and Turkey's role in it. The second is the Bosporus and the third is allowing the United States to operate from its air base in Incirlik in the event of increased Russian military involvement in Ukraine.

The crisis in Ukraine necessarily involves the Black Sea. Crimea's Sevastopol is a Russian Base on the Black Sea. In this potential conflict, the Black Sea becomes a vital theater of operations. First, in any movement westward by the Russians, the Black Sea is their right flank. Second, the Black Sea is a vital corridor for trade by the Russians, and an attempt by its enemies to shut down that corridor would have to be addressed by Russian naval forces. Finally, the U.S./NATO strategy in addressing the Ukrainian crisis has been to increase cooperation with Romania. Romania is on the Black Sea and the United States has indicated that it intends to work with Bucharest in strengthening its Black Sea capabilities. Therefore, events in the Black Sea can rapidly escalate under certain circumstances, posing threats to Turkish interests that Ankara cannot ignore.

The Black Sea issue is compounded by the question of the Bosporus, which is a narrow strait that, along with the Dardanelles, connects the Black Sea with the Mediterranean. The Bosporus is the only passage from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. For the Russians, this is a critical trade route and the only means for Russian ships passing into the Mediterranean. In the event of a conflict, the United States and NATO would likely want to send naval forces into the Black Sea to support operations around its perimeter.

Under the Montreaux Convention, an agreement signed in 1936, the Bosporus is under Turkish control. However the convention also places certain restrictions on traffic in the Bosporus. Access is guaranteed to all commercial traffic, however, Ankara is authorized to refuse transit to countries at war with Turkey. All countries with coasts on the Black Sea are free to operate militarily in the Black Sea. Non-Black Sea nations, however, suffer restrictions. Only warships under 15,000 tones may be sent, and no more than nine at any one time, with a total tonnage of 30,000 tons. And then they are only permitted to stay for 21 days or less.

This limits the ability of the United States to project forces into the Black Sea — American carrier battle groups, key components of U.S. naval power, are unable to pass through. Turkey is, under international law, the guarantor of the convention and it has over time expressed a desire to be freed from it so Ankara can exercise complete sovereignty over the Bosporus Straits. But it has also been comforted by knowing that refusal to allow warships to pass can be referred to international law, instead of being Turkish responsibility.

However, in the event of a conflict with Russia, that can no longer be discounted: Turkey is a member of NATO. If NATO were to formally participate in such a conflict, Ankara would have to choose whether the Montreaux Convention or its alliance obligations take precedence. The same can be said of air operations out of Incirlik. Does Turkey's relationship with NATO and the United States take precedence or will Ankara use the convention to control conflict in the Black Sea? Even prior to its own involvement in any conflict with Russia, there would be a potentially dangerous diplomatic crisis.

To complicate matters, Turkey receives a great deal of oil and natural gas from Russia through the Black Sea. Energy relations shift. There are economic circumstances on which the seller is primarily dependent on the sale, and circumstances on which the buyer is dependent. It depends on the room for maneuver. While oil prices were over $100, Russia had the financial option to stop shipping energy. Under current pricing, Russia's ability to do this has decreased dramatically. During the Ukrainian crisis, using energy cut-offs in Europe would have been a rational response to sanctions. The Russians did not do it because they could not afford the cost. The prior obsession with the fragility of the flow of energy from Russia is no longer there, and Turkey, a major consumer, has reduced its vulnerability, at least during the diplomatic phase.

The United States is constructing an alliance system that includes the Baltics, Poland and Romania that is designed to contain any potential Russian advance westward. Turkey is the logical southern anchor for this alliance structure. The Turks have been more involved than is already visible — conducting exercises with the Romanians and Americans in the Black Sea. But as in the Middle East, Ankara has carefully avoided any commitment to the alliance and has remained unclear on its Black Sea Strategy. While the Middle East is more enigmatic, the Russian situation is potentially more dangerous, though Turkish ambiguity remains identical.

Similarly, Turkey has long demanded membership in the European Union. Yet Ankara's economic performance over the last 10 years indicates that Turkey has benefitted from not being a member. Nevertheless, the secularists in particular have been adamant about membership because they felt that joining the union would guarantee the secular nature of Turkish society. The AKP has been more ambiguous. The party continues to ask for membership, but it has been quite content to remain outside. It did not want the EU strictures secularists wanted, nor did it want to share in the European economic crisis.

Turkey is nevertheless drawn in two directions. First, Ankara has inevitable economic ties in Europe that are effected by crises, ironically focused on its erstwhile enemy Greece. More important at the moment is the immigration and Islamic terrorism crisis in Europe. Many of the Muslims living in Germany, for example, are Turks and the treatment of overseas Turks is a significant political issue in Turkey. While Ankara has wanted to be part of Europe, neither economic reality nor the treatment of Turks and other Muslims in Europe argue for that relationship.

There is a growing breach with Europe in an attempt to avoid absorption of economic problems. However in southeastern Europe discussions of Turkish investments and trade are commonplace. Put into perspective, as Europe fragments, Turkey — a long-term economic power, understanding of what the short-term problems are — draws southeastern Europe into its economic center of gravity. In a way it becomes another force of fragmentation, simply by being an alternate economic benefactor for the poorer countries in the southeast.

The potential interaction of Turkey in the Middle East is an immediate question. The mid-term involvement with Russia is a longer question. Its relation to Europe is the longest question. And its relationship with the United States is the single question that intersects all of these. For all these concerns, Turkey has no clear answer. It is following a strategy designed to avoid involvement and maintain maximum options. Ankara relies on a multi-level strategy in which it is formally allied with some powers and quietly open to relations with powers hostile to its allies. This multi-hued doctrine is designed to avoid premature involvement; premature meaning before having achieved a level of strategic maturity and capability that allows it to define itself, with attendant risks.

In one sense, Turkish policy parallels American policy. U.S. policies in all three regions are designed to allow the regional balance of power to maintain itself, with Washington involving itself selectively and with limited force. The Turks are paralleling the United States in principle, and with even less exposure. The problem the Turks have is that geography binds them to the role of pivot for three regions. For the United States this role is optional. The Turks cannot make coherent decisions, but they must. So Ankara's strategy is to be consistently ambiguous, an enigma. This will work until outside powers make it impossible to work.

Sample Article: The Geopolitics of Greece: A Sea at its Heart

The Geopolitics of Greece: A Sea at its Heart

Analysis

UPDATE, November 2011:Originally published June 2010, our monograph on the geopolitics of Greece has been re-featured in light of the Greek economic situation. Editor's Note:This is the 12th in a series of  monographs on the geopolitics of countries influential in world affairs.
Throughout the history of Greece, its geography has been both a blessing and a curse, a blessing because it allowed Greece to dominate the "known Western world" for a good portion of Europe's ancient history due to a combination of sea access and rugged topography. In the ancient era, these were perfect conditions for a maritime city-state culture oriented toward commerce and one that was difficult to dislodge by more powerful land-based opponents. This geography incubated the West's first advanced civilization (Athens) and produced its first empire (ancient Macedon).

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Greece in Europe

However, Greek geography is also a curse because it is isolated on the very tip of the rugged and practically impassable Balkan Peninsula, forcing it to rely on the Mediterranean Sea for trade and communication. None of the Greek cities had much of a hinterland. These small coastal enclaves were easily defendable, but they were not easily unified, nor could they become large or rich due to a dearth of local resources. This has been a key disadvantage for Greece, which has had to vie with more powerful civilizations throughout its history, particularly those based on the Sea of Marmara in the east and the Po, Tiber and Arno valleys of the Apennine Peninsula to the west.

Peninsula at the Edge of Europe

Greece is located in southeastern Europe on the southernmost portion of the Balkan Peninsula, an extremely mountainous peninsula extending south from the fertile Pannonian plain. The Greek mainland culminates in what was once the Peloponnesian Peninsula and is now a similarly rugged island separated by the man-made Corinth Canal. Greek mountains are characterized by steep cliffs, deep gorges and jagged peaks. The average terrain altitude of Greece is twice that of Germany and comparable to the Alpine country of Slovenia. The Greek coastline is also very mountainous with many cliffs rising right out of the sea.
Greece is easily recognizable on a map by its multitude of islands, about 6,000 in total. Hence, Greece consists of not only the peninsular mainland but almost all of the Aegean Sea, which is bounded by the Dodecanese Islands (of which Rhodes is the largest) in the east, off the coast of Anatolia, and Crete in the south. Greece also includes the Ionian Islands (of which Corfu is the largest) in the west and thousands of islands in the middle of the Aegean. The combination of islands and rugged peninsular coastline gives Greece the 10th longest coastline in the world, longer than those of Italy, the United Kingdom and Mexico.
Mountainous barriers in the north and the northeast mean that the Greek peninsula is largely insulated from mainland Europe. Throughout its history, Greece has parlayed its natural borders and jagged terrain into a defensive advantage. Invasion forces that managed to make a landing on one of the few Greek plains were immediately met by high-rising cliffs hugging the coastline and well-entrenched Greek defenders blocking the path forward. The famous battle of Thermopylae is the best example, when a force of 300 Spartans and another 1,000 or so Greeks challenged a Persian force numbering in the hundreds of thousands. The Ottomans fared better than the Persians in that they actually managed to conquer Greece, but they ruled little of Greece's vast mountainous interior, where roving bands of Greek brigands — called khlepts — blocked key mountain passes and ravines and entered Greek lore as heroes. To this day, its rugged topography gives Greece a regionalized character that makes effective, centralized control practically impossible. Everything from delivering mail to collecting taxes — the latter being a key factor in Greece's ongoing debt crisis — becomes a challenge.

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Greek Geography 

With rugged terrain come defensive benefits, but also two geographic handicaps. First, Greece is largely devoid of any land-based transport routes to mainland Europe. The only two links between Greece and Europe are the Axios and Strimonas rivers, both which drain into the Aegean in Greek Macedonia. The Axios (also called the Vardar River) is key because it connects to the Morava River in Central Serbia and thus forms an Axios-Morava-Danube transportation corridor. While no part of the river is actually navigable, one can travel up the Balkan Peninsula on valley roads. The Strimonas takes one from Greek Macedonia to Sofia, Bulgaria's capital, and from there via the Iskar River through the Balkan Mountains to the Danubian plain of present-day Romania. Neither of these valleys is an ideal transportation route, however, since each forces the Greeks to depend on their Balkan neighbors to the north for links to Europe, historically an unenviable position for Greece.
The second handicap for Greece is that its high mountains and jagged coastline leave very little room for fertile valleys and plains, which are necessary for supporting large population centers. Greece has many rivers and streams that are formed in its mountains, but because of the extreme slope of most hills, most of these waterways create narrow valleys, gorges or ravines in the interior of the peninsula. This terrain is conducive to sheep- and goat-herding but not to large-scale agriculture.
This does not mean that there is no room for crops to grow. Indeed, rivers meeting the Aegean and Ionian seas carve short valleys that open to the coast where the sea breeze creates excellent conditions for agriculture. The problem is that, other than in Thessaly and Greek Macedonia, most of these valleys are limited in area. This explains to an extent why Greece, throughout its history, has retained a regionalized character, with each river estuary providing sufficient food production for literally one city-state and with jagged mountain peaks greatly complicating overland communication among these population centers. The only place where this is not the case is in Greek Macedonia — the location of present-day Thessaloniki — where a relatively large agricultural area provided for the West's first true empire, led by Alexander the Great.
Lack of large areas of arable land combined with poor overland transportation also complicate capital formation. Each river valley can supply its one regional center with food and sufficient capital for one trading port, but this only reinforces Greece's regionalized mentality. From the perspective of each region, there is no reason why it should supply the little capital it generates to a central government when it could just as well use that capital to develop a naval capability of its own, crucial for bringing in food via the Aegean. This creates a situation where the whole suffers from a lack of coordination and capital generation while substantial resources are spent on dozens of independent maritime regions, a situation best illustrated by ancient Greek city-states, most of which had independent navies. Considering that developing a competent navy is one of the costliest of state endeavors, one can imagine how such a regionalized approach to naval development constrained an already capital-poor Greece.
The lack of capital generation is therefore the most serious implication of Greek geography. Situated as far from global flows of capital as any European country that considers itself part of the West, Greece finds itself surrounded by sheltered ports, most of which are protected by mountains and cliffs that drop off into the sea. This affords Greece little room for population growth, and contributes to its inability to produce much domestic capital. This, combined with the regionalized approach to political authority encouraged by mountainous geography, has made Greece a country that has been inefficiently distributing what little capital it has had for millennia.
Countries that have low capital growth and considerable infrastructural costs usually tend to develop a very uneven distribution of wealth. The reason is simple: Those who have access to capital get to build and control vital infrastructure and thereby make the decisions both in public and working life. In countries that have to import capital, this becomes even more pronounced, since those who control industries and businesses that bring in foreign cash have more control than those who control fixed infrastructure, which can always be nationalized (industries and businesses can move elsewhere if threatened with nationalization). When such uneven distribution of wealth is entrenched in a society, a serious labor-capital (or, in the European context, a left-right) split emerges. This is why Greece is politically similar to Latin American countries, which face the same infrastructural and capital problems, right down to periods of military rule and an ongoing and vicious labor-capital split.

Greek Core: The Aegean

Despite the limitations on its capital generation, Greece has no alternative but to create an expensive defensive capability that allows it to control the Aegean Sea. Put simply, the core of Greece is neither the breadbaskets of Thessaly and Greek Macedonia, nor the Athens-Piraeus metropolitan area, where around half of the population lives. The core of Greece is the Aegean Sea — the actual water, not the coastland — which allows these three critical areas of Greece to be connected for trade, defense and communication. Control of the Aegean also gives Greece the additional benefit of influencing trade between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Without control of the Aegean, there simply is no Greece.
To control the Aegean and Cretan seas, Greece has to control two key islands in its archipelago, Rhodes and Crete, as well as the Dodecanese archipelago. With those islands under its control, the Aegean and Cretan seas truly become Greek "lakes." The other island of importance to Athens is Corfu, which gives Greece an anchor in the Otranto Strait and thus an awareness of threats emerging from the Adriatic.
Anything beyond the main Aegean islands and Corfu is not within the scope of Greece's basic national security interests and can only be gained by the projection of power. In this strategic context, Cyprus becomes important as a way to distract and flank Turkey and break its communications with the Levant and Egypt, traditional spheres of Istanbul's (and later Ankara's) influence. Sicily is also within the range of Greek power projection, and at the height of Greece's power in ancient times, Sicily was frequently colonized by Greek powers. Controlling Sicily gives Greece the key gateway into the western Mediterranean and brackets off the entire eastern half of the Mediterranean for itself. But neither is essential, and projecting Greek power toward either Sicily or Cyprus in the modern day is extremely taxing, although Greece has attempted it with Cyprus, an attempt that led to a near disastrous military confrontation with neighboring Turkey.
The cost of controlling just the Aegean Sea and its multitude of islands cannot be overstated. Aside from the monumental expense of maintaining a navy, Greece has the additional problem of having to compete with Turkey, which is still considered an existential threat for Greece.
In the modern context, this has also underscored the importance of air superiority over the Aegean. The Greek air force prides itself on maintaining a large and advanced fleet of front-line combat aircraft well in excess of the country's economic means, and many observers believe that their fighter pilots are among the best and most experienced in Europe — and beyond (they regularly tangle with Turkish pilots over the Aegean).
But maintaining, owning and training a superior air force means that Greece was spending more than 6 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defense, twice what other European countries were spending, just prior to the onset of the current financial crisis (it has since pledged to reduce it significantly, to below 3 percent). With no indigenous capital generation of its own, Greece has been forced to import capital from abroad to maintain such an advanced military. This is in addition to a generous social welfare system and considerable infrastructural needs created by its rugged geography. The result is the ongoing debt crisis that is threatening not only to collapse Greece but also to take the rest of the eurozone with it. The Greek budget deficit reached 13.6 percent of GDP in 2009, and government debt is approaching 150 percent of GDP.
Greece has not always been a fiscal mess. It has, in fact, been everything from a global superpower to a moderately wealthy European state to a political and economic backwater. To understand how this isolated, capital-poor country has devolved, we need to look beyond physical geography and contemplate the political geography of the region in which Greece has found itself throughout history.

From Ancient Superpower...

Ancient Greece gave the Western world its first culture and philosophy. It also gave birth to the study of geopolitics with Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, which is considered to be a seminal work on international relations. It is an injustice to give the ancient Greek period a quick overview, since it deserves a geopolitical monograph of its own, but a brief look provides a relevant glimpse at how geography played a role in turning Greek city-states into a superpower. The political geography of the period was vastly different from that of the present day. The Mediterranean Sea was the center of the world, one in which a handful of Greek city-states clutching the coast of the Aegean Sea could launch "colonial" expeditions across the Mediterranean. The rugged geography also afforded these city-states a terrain that favored defense and allowed them to defeat more powerful opponents.
Nonetheless, the ancient Greek period is the last time that Greece had some semblance of political independence. It therefore offers insights into how Greek geography has crafted Greek strategy.
From this ancient period, we note that control of the Aegean was of paramount importance, as it still is today. The Greeks — faced with nearly impassible terrain on the Peloponnesian Peninsula — were forced to become excellent mariners. Securing the Aegean was also crucial in repelling two major Persian invasions in antiquity, and each major land battle had its contemporary naval battle to sever Persian supply lines. Once the existential Persian threat was eliminated, Athens, the most powerful of the Greek city-states, launched an attempt to expand itself into an empire. This included establishing control of key Aegean islands. That imperial extension essentially ended with a long, drawn-out campaign to occupy and hold Sicily, which would have formed the basis of control of the entire eastern Mediterranean, and to wrestle Cyprus from Persian control.
While the Athenians may have understood the geopolitics of the Mediterranean well, they did not have advanced bureaucratic and communications technology that makes running a country much easier in the modern age or the population with which to prosecute their plans. Athenian expeditions to Cyprus and Egypt were repulsed while Sicily became Athens' endgame, causing dissent in the coalition of city-states that eventually brought about the end of Athenian power. This example only serves to illustrate how difficult it was to maintain control of mainland Greece. Athens settled for a loose confederation of city-states, which was not a sufficient basis of control on which to establish an empire.
Bitter rivalries among the various Peloponnesian city-states created a power vacuum in the 4th century B.C. that was quickly filled by the Kingdom of Macedon. Despite its reputation as the most "backward" of the Greek regions — in terms of culture, system of government, philosophy and arts — Macedon had something that the city-states did not: the ample agricultural land of the Axios and Strimonas river valleys — ample, at least, compared to the Peloponnesian Peninsula. Whereas Athens and other city-states depended on seaborne trade to obtain grain from regions beyond the Turkish straits and the Black Sea, Macedon had domestic agriculture. It also had an absolute authoritarian system of government that allowed it to launch the first truly Greek-dominant foray into global power projection under Alexander the Great.
This effort, however, could not be sustained. Ultimately, the estuary of Axios did not provide the necessary agricultural base to counter the rise of Rome, which was able to draw not only on the Tiber and Arno river valleys but also, in time, the large Po river valley. Rome first extended itself into the Greek domain by capturing the island of Corfu — illustrating the island's importance as a point of invasion from the west — which had already fallen out of Greek hands in the 3rd century B.C. With Corfu secured, Rome had nothing standing between it and the Greek mainland, and through military campaigns ultimately secured control over all of Greece by 86 B.C.
The fall of Greece to Rome essentially wiped Greece out of the annals of history as an independent entity for the next 2,000 years and destined mainland Greece and the Peloponnesian Peninsula to the backwater status it had under Byzantine and Ottoman rule (save for Thessaloniki, which remained a key port and trading city in the Ottoman Empire). While it may be tempting to include Byzantium in the discussion of Greek geopolitics, since its culture and language were essentially Greek, the Byzantine geography was much more approximate to that of the Ottoman Empire and later Turkey than that of Greece proper. The core of Byzantium was the Sea of Marmara, which Byzantium held onto against the encroaching Ottoman Turks until the mid-15th century.
In the story of the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans, the territory of modern Greece is essentially an afterthought. It was the Ottoman advance through the Maritsa River valley that destroyed Bulgarian and Serbian kingdoms in the 14th century, allowing the Ottomans to then concentrate on consolidating the remaining Byzantine territories and conquering Constantinople in the mid-15th century after a brief interregnum caused by Mongol invasions of Anatolia. Greece proper was not conquered as much as it was abruptly severed from the rest of the Balkans — and therefore Christian Europe — by the Ottoman power that thoroughly dominated all the land and sea surrounding it.

...To Vassal State

The ascent of the Ottoman Empire created a new political geography around Greece that made an independent and powerful Greece impossible. The Ottoman Empire was an impressive political entity that plugged up the Balkans by controlling the southern flanks of the Carpathians in present-day Romania and the central Balkan Mountains of present-day Serbia and Bulgaria. Greece, as part of the Ottoman Empire, was not vital for Ottoman defense or purse, although Greeks as people were valued as administrators and were assigned as such to various parts of the empire. Greece itself, however, had become an afterthought.
If we had to pinpoint the exact time and place where political geography in southeastern Europe changed, we could look at Sept. 11, 1683, at around 5 p.m. on the battlefields near Vienna. It was here that Polish King Jan Sobieski III led what was, at the time, the largest cavalry charge in history against the Ottoman forces besieging Vienna. The result was not just a symbolic defeat for Istanbul but also a failure to plug the Vienna gap that the Danube and Morava (the Slovak, not Serbian Morava) rivers create between the Alps and the Carpathians.
Holding the Vienna gap would have allowed the Ottomans to focus their military resources in defense of the empire at a geographical bottleneck — Vienna — freeing up resources to concentrate on developing the Balkan hinterland. The Pannonian plain, fertile and capital rich because of the Danube, would have added additional resources. The Ottoman Empire did not crumble immediately after its failure in Vienna, but its stranglehold on the Balkans slowly began to erode as two new powers — the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires — rose to challenge it.
Without the Vienna gap secured, the Ottoman Empire was left without natural boundaries to the northwest. From Vienna down to the confluence of the Danube and Sava, where present-day Belgrade is located, the Pannonian plain is borderless save for rivers. The mountainous Balkans provide some protection but are equally difficult for the Ottomans to control without the time and resources to concentrate on assimilating the region. The loss of Vienna, therefore, exposed portions of the Balkan Peninsula to Western (and, crucially, Russian) influence and interests as well as Western notions of nationalism, which began circulating throughout the Continent with great force following the French Revolution.
First to turn against the Ottomans was Serbia in the early 19th century. The Greek struggle followed closely afterward. While initial Greek gains against the Ottomans in the 1820s were impressive, the Ottomans unleashed their Egyptian forces on Greece in 1826. The Europeans were at first resistant to help Christian Greece because the precedent set by the nationalist rebellion was equally unwelcome in multiethnic Russia and Austro-Hungary or the imperial United Kingdom. Ultimately, the Europeans had a greater fear that one of the three would move in and profit from the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and gain access to the eastern Mediterranean.
While Austro-Hungary and Russia had designs on the Balkans, more established European powers like the United Kingdom, France and (later in the 19th century) Germany wanted to limit any territorial gains by Vienna and St. Petersburg. This was vital for the United Kingdom, which did not want to allow the Russian Empire access to the Mediterranean.
Since the end of its war against the Ottomans in 1832, Greece has been geopolitically vital for the West. First it was vital for the British, as a bulwark against great-power encroachment on the crumbling Ottoman hold in the Balkans. The United Kingdom retained a presence — at various periods and in various capacities — in Corfu, Crete and Cyprus. To this day, the United Kingdom still has military installations in Cyprus that are considered sovereign territory under direct British rule.
Greece also became vital for the United States as part of the U.S. Soviet-containment strategy. To maintain influence in Greece, the United States intervened in the Greek Civil War (1946-1949), furnished the Greek merchant marine with ships after World War II, rushed Greece and Turkey into NATO in 1952 and continued to underwrite Greek defense outlays throughout the 20th century. Even a brief military junta in Greece, referred to as the "Rule of the Colonels" (1967-1974), did not affect Greek membership in NATO. Neither did Greece's near-wars with fellow NATO member Turkey in 1964 (over Cyprus), in 1974 (over Cyprus again), in 1987 (over the Aegean Sea) and in 1996 (over an uninhabited island in the Aegean).
The United Kingdom and later the United States were willing to underwrite Greek defense expenditures and provide Greece with sufficient capital to be a viable independent state and enjoy a near-Western standard of living. In exchange, Greece offered the West a key location from which to plug Russian and later Soviet penetration into the Mediterranean basin.

Geopolitical Imperatives

Before we go into a discussion of the contemporary Greek predicament, we can summarize the story of Greek geography as told by history in a few strategic imperatives:
• Secure control of the Aegean to maintain defensive and communication lines with key mainland population centers.
• Establish control of Corfu, Crete and Rhodes to prevent invasions from the sea.
• Hold the Axios River valley and as far up the valley as possible for agricultural land and access to mainland Europe.
• Consolidate the hold on inland Greece by eliminating regional power centers and brigands, then collect taxes and concentrate capital in accordance with the needs of the state.
• Extend control to outer islands such as Cyprus and Sicily to dominate the eastern Mediterranean (this is an imperative that Greece has not accomplished since ancient times).

Greece Today

With the collapse of the Soviet threat at the end of the Cold War and the subsequent end of the Balkan wars with the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia, the political geography of the region changed once again. This time the change was unfavorable for Athens. With the West largely uninterested in the affairs of the region, Greece lost its status as a strategic ally. And along with that status, Athens lost the political and economic support that allowed it to overcome its capital deficiencies.
This was evident to everyone but the Greeks. Countries rarely accept their geopolitical irrelevance lightly. Athens absolutely refused to. Instead it did everything it could to retain its membership in the first-world club, borrowing enormous sums of money to spend on the most sophisticated military equipment available and producing erroneous financial records to get into the eurozone. This is often lost amid the ongoing debt crisis, which is commonly described — mainly by the Western European press — as a result of Greek laziness, profligate spending habits and irresponsibility. But faced with a geography that engenders a capital- poor environment and an existential threat from Turkey that challenges its Aegean core, Greece had no alternative but to indebt itself after its Western patrons lost interest, and now even that option is in doubt. (Trying to keep up with its fellow EU states in terms of quality of life obviously played a role in Greece's financial overextension, but this can also be placed in the context of keeping up with a modernizing Turkey next door.)
Today, Greece cannot even dream of achieving its fifth geopolitical imperative, dominating the eastern Mediterranean. Even its fourth imperative, the consolidation of inland Greece, is in question, as illustrated by Greece's inability to collect taxes. Nearly 25 percent of the Greek economy is in the so-called "shadow" sector, by far the highest rate among the world's developed countries.
Succeeding in maintaining control of the Aegean, Greece's most important imperative, in the face of regional opposition is simply impossible without an outside patron. Going forward, the question for Greece is whether it will be able to accept its much-reduced geopolitical role. This, too, is out of its hands, depending as it does on the strategies that Turkey adopts. Turkey is a rising geopolitical power intent on spreading its influence in the Balkans, the Middle East and the Caucasus. The question is now whether Turkey will focus its intentions on the Aegean, or instead will be willing to make a deal with Greece in order to concentrate on other interests.
Ultimately, Greece needs to find a way to become useful again to one or more great powers — unlikely, unless a great-power conflict returns to the Balkans — or to sue for lasting peace with Turkey and begin learning how to live within its geopolitical means. Either way, the next three years will be defining ones in Greek history. The joint 110 billion-euro bailout package from the International Monetary Fund and European Union comes with severe austerity strings attached, which are likely to destabilize the country to a significant degree. Grafted onto Greece's regionalized social geography, vicious left-right split and history of political and social violence, the IMF-EU measures will further weaken the central government and undermine its control. An eventual default is almost assured by the level of government debt, which will soon be above 150 percent of GDP.
It is only a question of when, not if, the Europeans pull the plug on Athens — which most likely will be at the first opportunity, when Greece does not present a systemic risk to the rest of Europe. At that point, without access to international capital or more bailout money, Greece could face a total collapse of political control and social violence not seen since the military junta of the 1970s. Greece, therefore, finds itself in a very unfamiliar situation. For the first time since the 1820s, it is truly alone.

Να ψηφίσω Ναι η Οχι ??? ενα δημοψήφισμα παγίδα

ΓΙΑΤΙ ΜΙΑ ΟΡΙΣΜΕΝΗ ΜΕΡΙΔΑ ΦΙΛΕΛΕ ΚΑΙ ΔΕΞΙΩΝ ΘΑ ΨΗΦΙΣΟΥΝ "ΟΧΙ" 

1. Κατά τη διάρκεια της Χούντας αρκετοί άρπαξαν θαλασσοδάνεια (take the money and run) και έκαναν business μαζί της. Μεταξύ αυτών και πολλοί οι οποίοι μετά το έπαιζαν "δημοκράτες", "προοδευτικοί", Νεοδημοκράτες, ΠΑΣΟΚΟΙ, κομμουνιστές κλπ...η οικογένεια Τσίπρα αποτελεί χαρακτηριστικό παράδειγμα...όλοι τους έγιναν με μέγαρα και πολυκατοικίες. Όλοι τους θησαύρισαν. 

2. Η ηγεσία της ΝΔ αμέσως μετά το '75, προκειμένου να αποκτήσει κεντρώο έρεισμα ομιλούσε περί σταγονιδίων της Χούντας κλπ., και ξεκίνησε τις κρατικοποιήσεις ιδιωτικών επιχειρήσεων με ταυτόχρονους διορισμούς κομμουνιστών στο δημόσιο (πχ. χαρακτηριστικό παράδειγμα η αγαπημένη δημοσιογράφος του γερο-Καραμανλή η κ. Κανέλλη). Οι διορισμοί κομμουνιστών μεταξύ 1975-1981 (επί Αβέρωφ, Ράλλη, κλπ.) είχαν πάρει τεράστιες διαστάσεις. Απόδειξη αυτού αποτελεί το γεγονός της γιγάντωσης των συνδικαλιστικών παρατάξεων της Αριστεράς προ του 1981...ποιός τους διόριζε όλους αυτούς;;; Ταυτόχρονα, από την άλλη πλευρά, όποιος δεξιός τολμούσε να περάσει το κατώφλι του γραφείου του Αβέρωφ και να ζητήσει χάρη , τον πέταγε έξω λέγοντας πως "αυτά δεν τα κάνει η ΝΔ"...ο Αβέρωφ όμως και η οικογένεια Καλογιάννη στην Ήπειρο διόριζαν διαρκώς κομμουνιστές στο δημόσιο!...ο δε Αβέρωφ διόριζε κομμουνιστές ΚΑΙ στη Σχολή Ευελπίδων! Ταυτόχρονα η ΝΔ (ειδικά οι Καλογιάννης-Αβέρωφ) είχε στο φτύσιμο τους ανθρώπους οι οποίοι είχαν πολεμήσει στο Γράμμο και καταδικασθεί σε θάνατο από τους ΕΛΑΣΙΤΕΣ...δεν τους ήθελαν μη τυχόν και τους κατηγορήσουν οι κομμουνιστές...ως δεξιούς. 

3. Μετά το 1981, το ΠΑΣΟΚ διόριζε μόνο αριστερούς, και παρά το γεγονός πως φώναζε έξω από την ΕΟΚ, ήταν το κόμμα που ερχόμενο στην εξουσία είχε το μοναδικό προνόμιο διορισμού χιλιάδων νεαρών οπαδών του (ΜΑΡΞΙΣΤΩΝ) στις υπηρεσίες των Βρυξελλών. Είναι όλοι αυτοί οι σημερινοί 60άρηδες Έλληνες υπάλληλοι της Κομισιόν οι οποίοι απολαμβάνουν χρυσούς μισθούς και έχουν μεταμορφωθεί σε νεο-φιλελέ! Αυτό συνεχίστηκε καθόλη τη διάρκεια εξουσίας του ΠΑΣΟΚ, το οποίο υπήρξε πιστότατο στη στήριξη των οπαδών του...Αντίθετα η ΝΔ, συνέχισε το τροπάρι "αξιοποιώ τους αριστερούς, αφού έχω στο τσεπάκι μου τα κορόϊδα τους δεξιούς" (πχ. περίπτωση μαρξιστή Ρουσόπουλου). 

4. Καθόλη τη διάρκεια της μεταπολίτευσης, υπήρξαν λοιπόν φιλελέ δεξιοί ΑΠΟΓΟΝΟΙ ΣΗΜΕΡΑ των "κορόϊδων" πολεμιστών του Γράμμου  οι οποίοι ακολούθησαν μοναχικό δρόμο και πέτυχαν επαγγελματικά...αυτοί δεν χτύπησαν ποτέ την πόρτα οποιουδήποτε κόμματος, ΚΑΙ ΔΕΝ ΕΠΩΦΕΛΗΘΗΚΑΝ ΣΕ ΤΙΠΟΤΕ ΑΠΟ ΤΗ ΣΥΜΜΕΤΟΧΗ ΤΗΣ ΧΩΡΑΣ ΣΤΗΝ ΕΕ...καθώς δεν έχουν εισπράξει, ποτέ, ούτε μία δραχμή ή ευρώ, έμμεσα ή άμεσα, από την ΕΕ...αντίθετα, ακαδημαϊκοί, αγρότες κλπ. λαμόγια των ΠΑΣΟΚ, ΝΔ, ΚΚΕ, ΣΥΡΙΖΑ κλπ. έχουν θησαυρίσει. 

ΣΥΜΠΕΡΑΣΜΑ-ΠΡΟΤΑΣΗ: 
Η αστική τάξη της Ελλάδας ας αναζητήσει την ψήφο του "ΝΑΙ" σε αυτούς που έχουν επωφεληθεί τα μέγιστα από τη συμμετοχή της χώρας στην ΕΕ. 

Ας αναζητήσει το ΝΑΙ στα παραχαϊδεμένα παιδιά της. 

Σε αυτούς οι οποίοι στηρίζονταν από ΝΔ και ΠΑΣΟΚ: από τους ΚΟΜΜΟΥΝΙΣΤΕΣ-ΣΥΡΙΖΑΙΟΥΣ! 
ΥΓ. προσωπικά δεν υπάρχει περίπτωση να ξαναεπιτρέψω στην οικογένειά μου να ξαναπιαστεί"κορόϊδο" προς όφελος της Αστικής τάξης: δεν πρόκειται να δώσουμε την παραμικρή ρανίδα αίματος προς υπεράσπιση του Φιλελευθερισμού και της Δεξιάς. Ας βγάλουν το φίδι από την τρύπα άλλοι. ΤΕΛΟΣ. 

ΥΓ 2. Πόσων οι οικογένειες εδώ μέσα στο capital.gr πολέμησαν στο Γράμμο εναντίον των κομμουνιστών; Καταδικάστηκε κανείς από τις οικογένειές σας εδώ μέσα σε θάνατο από ΕΛΑΣΙΤΕΣ επειδή ήταν μεγαλο-στέλεχος του Ζέρβα; Πήγατε ποτέ σας στις γιορτές του Γράμμου τα τελευταία 20 χρόνια για να τιμήσετε τους νεκρούς αυτούς; (όμως ο χοντρο-Κωστάκης-τρώω-σουβλάκια πήγε στη Μακρόνησο να τιμήσει τους κομμουνιστές!). 
Ας ψηφίσουν ΝΑΙ οι κομμουνιστές που διόρισαν η οικογένεια του Καλπ(ο)γιάννη, του Αβέρωφ, του Καραμανλή, του Ράλλη κλπ..

Geopolitical games in Iraq - The secret meeting Putin and Turkey's role

Recent events in Iraq crystallized, perhaps the best way, through a series of photographs ... immortalized a jihadist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (IKIL). This series is titled as "The Destruction of the Sykes-Pikot Agreement" (Sykes-Picot Agreement) and confirms the intention of the group to reverse IKIL spheres of influence in the Middle East, as had been established for nearly a century.

This series illustrates the leveling a border dyke to the north Syrian border with Iraq. The rebels, covered with koufigia, under the hot sun, observe the progress of work. The opening will create large enough to pass, in a single column, the former American Humvee jeeps of the Iraqi Army, which have now passed into the jihadists. While a map that describes an antiquated interpretation of Sharia has spread to Mosul, photos with chastagk # SykesPicotOver trafficked widely through social network twitter. According to the jihadists borders of 1916, set secrets from French and British imperialists represented by Sir Mark Sykes and Francois Georges-Paikot divide arbitrarily Mesopotamia and can be challenged.

Currently, the most ardent supporters of these colonial borders are in Baghdad, Damascus, Ankara, Tehran and Riyadh, while Europeans and Americans, who already feel the fatigue involved a decade of war on this side of world, they want everything possible to stay out of the crisis. The burden falls on the shoulders of local actors, who are called to prevent the establishment of a mini-emiratoutis Islamic Jihad, and the background of this common purpose, coexists enough room intrigues.

Turkey in search strategy

While the jihadist threat blowing over Iraq and Syria, Turkey struggles to isolate the violence abroad and pursue a strategic agenda in Iraqi Kurdistan. Turkey is allied with the Iraqi Kurdish leadership, leading off the central government in Baghdad. While escalated his attacks IKIL, Turkey, with the consent of Turkey's energy minister, sailed two tankers in the Turkish port of Ceyhan, carrying Kurdish million barrels of crude oil in search of buyer, which angered the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki . On June 16, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz, bringing even more intensity, announced that another tanker, the third in the series, will be ready within the week. With al-Maliki now based in Kurdish forces to repel jihadists in the north, the centers of Ankara and Erbil have the upper hand in the ongoing dispute with Baghdad on the distribution of petrodollars.
However, support for Turkey's Kurds of Iraq has its limits.

Ankara estimated that closer relationship with the Kurdish Government would serve the exploitation of energy reserves in northern Iraq and in control of Kurdish unrest within the borders of Turkey. Nevertheless, Turkey certainly did not intend to assist the independence of the Kurds. And now, where Kirkuk is under Kurdish control, after the sudden wave of jihadists, the largest oilfield in northern Iraq puts "fuel" the mechanisms of Kurdish separatism. To the great concern of Turkey, Kurdish militants from the Kurdistan Workers' Party and the entire people of Defense units have already strengthened the positions of pesmergka (Kurdish fighters) in northern Iraq. At the same time, the IKIL and other jihadists partners, holding 80 hostages Turkish citizens.

Turkey therefore has put foot in Mesopotamia, but not under its own terms. A Turkish force 1500-2000 soldiers has taken place silently in Iraqi Kurdistan. This force will probably expand, now that Turkey can invoke a series of threats and a growing need to reduce the ambitions of the Kurds, to justify its presence there. The Kurdish leadership is between clashing rocks, the one has in mind the deep-rooted distrust of Kurdish in Turkey, however, they must face their own challenges, including the threat from Iran, which is a common opponent in both own and Turkey.

Iran on the defensive

Iran, worried by the growing pervasive policy of Turkey in Kurdistan and the possibility of exporting jihadist threat is developing in recent months the military presence along the border with boron Iraq. Tehran is currently in the uncomfortable position of having to strengthen Shiite allies in the Iraqi army. Although Iran is probably better operational preparedness to handle the situation alone, such a strategy would pose enormous risks.

Iran has spent the last year trying laboriously to establish the influence of Shiites in Iraq under a central government in Baghdad. Tehran is bound specifically to al-Maliki, however it is essential to keep a close support with Baghdad that would manage the fluid nature of landscape unruly Shia in Iraq. Use Shiite militias, while allowing Iran to strengthen the Iraqi army in this critical situation, but undermines the long-term intention of Iran to control Iraq having the upper hand in Baghdad. The longer supported militias and Baghdad become comparatively weaker, more should future Iran labored to restrict the secession of the Southern Shia Iraq.

The upsurge of fighting in the Sunni-controlled areas of Iraq lead to potentially greater Iranian involvement in this dynamic conflict. A call Sunnis to turn their arms against the Persians, historical enemies, and allies of the Persians, the Arabs, Shiites, is an excellent incentive for Sunni Arab fighters, bypassing what any ideological differences with each other.

A resurgence of fanatical related feuds will complicate further the Shiite government of Iraq to recruit several allies among the Sunni population of Iraq to fight against the jihadists.

However, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (IKIL) would not have accomplished the lightning spread across Iraq, although there was substantial support for local Sunni tribal groups, which enjoy significant subsidies in exchange supporters from the Persian Gulf. Our attention must therefore be turned to members of the royal family of Saudi Arabia, who apparently watching developments from the "quiet" Riyadh.

The role of Saudi Arabia

Admittedly, this was not a good year for the Saudis. A Persian American approach would be a nightmare for the Sunni kingdom of Saud, as the prospect of the U.S. to wean energy. Saudi Arabia has no means to directly sabotage the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. Indeed, the Saudis had to swallow the "bitter" pill and they start a dialogue with Iran. Nevertheless, the Saudis can and will make life difficult for the Iranians, and if he could be invited to negotiate, will proceed under their own terms.

Syria and Lebanon have consistently serve as hot spots battles destabilizing the region, although the Sunni insurgency has little chance to overthrow the regime in Damascus-based Iran-Lebanon and is so fragmented that no local agent can not be claim a significant advantage. The game has shifted therefore influence in Mesopotamia, Iran does not want to lose the benefits of the rise of Shia in Saudi Arabia-either formally or private-has developed close ties with several tribal groups in the Sunni areas of Anbar Mosul and strengthened the Sunni insurgency.

The Saudis do not have good relations with IKIL. In fact, they've kicked a terrorist organization after parts of the organization in Saudi territory conspiring against kingdom.

But IKIL is not the only organization involved in attacks in the region. Former Baathist fighters from Naqshabandiyya, together with Mujahideen and Sounach also play an important role in the ongoing battles. Most of the Sunni paramilitary groups and the growing number of defectors Awakening Council (composed of Sunni fighters who enlisted in the United States to fight Al Qaeda in Iraq) joined now by these paramilitary groups are coordinated directly by the guerrilla group Anbar, which in turn coordinated with IKIL on a selective basis synergasias.O chief of intelligence of Saudi Arabia, the Yousef bin Ali al Idrisis, believed to be in direct contact with the team Anbar, enabling Riyadh affect the evolution of fighting and thus to bring Iran into serious trouble.

The bonus for Saudi Arabia, although the Sunni insurgency, still largely confined to the Sunni areas in Iraq, and therefore is not expected to affect the production and export of Iraqi oil from the Shiite south, the bonus is the price of crude, have jumped to $ 113 a barrel for the first time this year. Saudi Arabia is not the only party to benefit and wishes this Geli on oil prices. Russia considered itself to be quite satisfied with the effects of the crisis in Iraq.

Reassessment of a mysterious meeting in Sochi

On 3 June, just days before the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (IKIL) attack in Iraq, a secret meeting took place in the holiday resort of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi. Putin invited the Saudi prime minister Saud al-Faisal and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who cut short a commitment made in Moscow in order to arrive on time. Details of the content of the meeting is scarce.

The investigative journalism of Geopolitical Weekly to collect information on the content of the meeting proved fruitless, as the only poudimosiopoiithike summary was that Saudi Arabia and Russia have discussed a possible resolution for the division of power in Syria. The state news agency of Saudi Arabia announced on June 10 that Lavrov and al-Faisal had a telephone conversation follows, discussing the settlement of the crisis in Syria. Although Syria is high on the agenda and Russia's interest to protect its influence in Damascus through an agreement that would keep the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in power, allafparchoun suspected contained larger background of these commitments.

Both Saudi Arabia and Russia both share mutual goals: to undermine the bargaining line between Iran and the U.S. and to keep oil prices at a satisfactory, for them, a level above $ 100 a barrel.

Few can do to prevent a negotiated settlement between Iran and U.S.. In fact, the events in Iraq and the jihadist threat adds another reason for cooperation between the U.S. and Iran. Washington still faces a large vortex in the Middle East, at the same time anxiously trying to show both internally and with its partners, the interest is mainly focused on other important issues in other parts of the world, and particularly in the immediate vicinity Russia, Ukraine. Moreover, the United States and Turkey have a common view on how to manage the issue of Iraq, a phase where Washington needs cooperation of Ankara towards Russia.

If a crisis of the magnitude of the war in Iraq ignition, give the time needed by Moscow to manage its regional issues with as less U.S. intervention, the better for Putin. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is trying to weaken Iran and to test the US-Iranian cooperation, and in this direction Riyadh believes that it is worth trying to move, at least for now.

History lesson

Whether by coincidence, or on careful strategic planning, or a combination of both, there are many winners and many losers in the game with Iraq. Russia knows this game. The United States, a successor power in colonial spheres of influence map of Sykes-Picot, will be forced to turn to quickly grasp the rules of the game.

When the French and the British were conspiring in 1916 on the post-Ottoman map, Czarist Russia tacitly consented to Paris and London to divide the lands. Exactly one year later, in 1917, the Soviets threw a strategic fulcrum on the agenda of Western publishing agreement Sykes-Picot, thus planting the seeds for the upcoming Arab riots and inciting the imperialist domination of Europe and the Middle Anatoli.Tora the U.S. government recognizes the trap that awaits her. But having knowledge of history, this time, Washington should let local actors to absorb most of the risk.

The reaction of the world evokes the wrath of drug addict!

On Sunday we're going to vote for the European Parliament . I do not know what is happening in Europe . I watched the debates of candidates, but still could not figure it out . Preserved Europe or threatening to sink the redefinition of the role of the new landscape of globalization ? In Greece we have our own issues and not unjustly . Five years of recession are those with nothing else to deal ? However , there is one common in Greece and Europe: The rise of the extreme right .

Europe once lived from the colonies . The inhabitants of the third world paid dearly for the prosperity of the Western world . And while it is quite easy for the European eftrafi thinking how unfair the world is for hungry children in Africa , the same man may pass the most extreme racist party if you believe that threatened the good standard of living .

This exact thing is happening right now . Europe reduces its contribution to the global GDP and folks react to the prospect of losing their paradise . What 's left? The appeal to the extreme, the threat of the return of protectionism. In other words the despair against common sense .

Next Sunday night Europe can deal with completely different things than what we in Greece . The rise of the extreme right can be a great topic for discussion around the next time. Normally Europe should be looking for new ways to be able to stay in the game competition . But do not do that . She does not want or can not.

The Germans are the only ones who are aware of the problem . However , do not share their solutions with the rest of Europe . They are wrong when they insist on reasonable " Prussian administration ." There can Europe become Germany . On the other hand we can not demand that the Germans pay our own obsessions .

Can Europe chase innovation ? He wants ? You might, for example , the French Economy to become competitive ? And how can we talk about a united Europe when we have so many different speeds ? Europe's problem is economic, because you need to return in the third world market shares has been deprived for centuries . It is a huge historical change . At the same time , however , Europe has a political problem. Can not continue without a united common foreign and economic policy.

The fact that missing the answers to the questions that plague today Europeans gives ground to the Eurosceptics and especially the far right . Imagine you were in Europe the economic problem facing Greece ! Because in Greece the rise of the Golden Dawn can be justified by the destruction of the middle class . Elsewhere in Europe , however , we have not yet ranked phenomena to justify rates and larger than those of the Golden Dawn !

Beyond that there is an issue " face" of this phenomenon . What are you doing ? We have the experience of the Second World War . We know how dangerous this ideology . And we know that all opinions are respected within the Republic , but the Republic did not exist when these extreme currents are majoritarian or somehow get the power . So ? And if today is difficult , imagine how much more difficult it can become in the coming years , as the income of Europeans would be reduced and the percentage of right-wing in Europe will increase.

Amidst all this the Greece seeks position. In 2000 we thought that the prospect of a united Europe is the solution to all problems of the Nation . And there we made the mistake. Was allowed and what was done . How can we , really , to survive on a backdrop of recession in Europe if we do not produce ? And that will happen without a national plan for the reconstruction of our economy ? Very afraid that we are far enough from the start talking on the basis of common sense . Because I just do not want to deal with the problem .

Our traditional relationship with the state - daddy that fully meets our requirements for social policy has been replaced by a United Europe . Only Europe has no more money , not to provide new subsidies . The implementation of social policy requires funds . These funds are secured until the last Europe from the exploitation of the third world . Now this can not continue . No there is money and there is no room for benefits .

The wrath of the world like the wrath of addicts passes withdrawal syndrome . At that time it can do bad things, which he considers in despair strictly logical . But it is not! So do the citizens of Europe who see to lose their shot . They blame Europe as an idea and vote for the far right . Over the outrage seems a logical choice , but it is not ...

We hope Sunday night to disprove predictions are right now and to allay our fears . But what we call resembles the " good luck " that nobody can wish him a prisoner . The chance to rebut the obvious and often exceeds even this miracle ...

Partners more money as available....

We paid the British ' culture ' with swag Parthenon . We paid the German fascism with swag 30 billion dollars in 1944 prices . We paid and Third World socialism with swag 10 billion euros from the "high society"  and with more than 300 billion debt to make do all government-funded . Companions of the next " Change" ask money from your comrades the previous " Change" .

To where did the money we ate . Onassis had bought Olympic 60,000,000 drachmas and our sold $ 60,000,000 in 1975 to deliver the "high society" of the then New Democracy and PASOK continued to do for free rides and richer partisan lucky rammed in wings with 2 billion paid by the stupid taxpayers to have state-owned carrier .

How difficult was it to pull our heads off OA and late Onassis who Panagis PAPALIGOURAS nor wanted to see, or want to know ?

Since there were at least two particularly interesting proposals for the acquisition of OA Why were ignored and nationalize ?

But to satisfy the demands of pilots and technicians on the day of the Republic spoiled defying the world and the oil crisis and the difficult times that passed the Greece .

This was the pretext .

In essence , of course, like state and chairs to "relax " the armies of those who " fought " to restore democracy in place ...

Why do not we tied ( tax ) the hand of Andreadis but leave him ( as was screamed then) to fend for themselves by returning what we thought chrostage the state?

What won him saddled and nationalize Banks , Insurance , buses , chemicals and fertilizers that we were giving the curse in almost foodstuff Korydallou Lavrentiadis and paid 7.5 billion drachmas compensation to the family Andreadis only permits the refineries ?

We won that nationalized the giant group Andreadis was sureness bear the Karamanlis "high society" and built the first "center party recruits ' LD

But then why not sell all the European and American groups , who by then had shown interest ?

Why be loaded and the group Niarchos , when he had proposed tolerance due to the oil crisis and had explained that if it was making the addition would sell petroleum and shipbuilding group of investors who planned and extensions . It was known from then those investors .

I ignored it because we promised the dictatorship of unionism high pay , benefits non absenteeism and permanence on the state coffers that fills and fills the purse workers and entrepreneurs in the private sector .

Why take the state to make chemical, petrochemical , mining and metallurgical , when all these industries in Europe were trying to find a chance to shut down or sold to idiots statists ?

To build your ELEVME and METVA make machinery orders to buy land and start so early massive corruption transactions between the state and kratikodiaiton entrepreneurs associated with foreign firms .

Who entered the prison of the unemployed and astoicheiotous klakadorous party appointed industrialists on issues that massacred indigenous taxes , defaulted ETVA and made bankrupt then many wealthy businessmen, who then returned through other groups and again did business with the state?

No one was jailed because the socialization of Andreas Papandreou was the third world socialist tool of competition nationalization of Constantine Karamanlis.

Why so founded the state- business caste , which in the forefront chameleons union put the state to freeze debts , debt , contributions and gives jobs from known and always sinful Unified Procurement Program .

Why not sold even problematic for a pittance and leave the backs of taxpayers and banks that continue to finance them with a gun to their head ?

Open all the files of the National , the former state trading of ETBAbank , ETEBA particular ATE and reveal us honestly how paid Third World socialism junta . Including the " issuers" media who came , ate and went away ... So tell us how we wager a state- entrepreneurs who experienced this same socialism you want to restore again !

Companions of the second " change" we do not give more money . If you scoop up the huge fortunes of the company of the first " change" . The Tsohatzopoulos and his friends is a good start and a good trick.

The disaster of the Americal External Diplomacy

Barack Obama tonight (9/10/13) will address address to the American nation on the subject of Syria and the policy of Washington toward Damascus as the Russian proposal to impose international control over the Syrian chemical arsenal gave another twist to the political- diplomatic race last days.

"This may be an important development ," he said in interviews he gave in 6 U.S. television networks last night , adopting a more compromise tone , Barack Obama, who , faced with an American public opinion hostile to choice of military action against the regime in Damascus , called to reshape the heart of politics in Washington in the Syrian case as not to jeopardize the credibility of both American foreign policy and the same of his presidency.

Acknowledging that it is in a difficult position against the Congress of which has requested the green light for a military operation , Barack Obama said that the latest developments are the result of threats Washington's military strikes . When asked about the possibility of " interruption" of preparations for a military operation against Damascus if imposed control over the Syrian chemical arsenal , he replied that "if this happens , it is quite likely ."

However, he warned that they should not be given carte blanche to the Syrian government : "We remain cautious because we have not seen it work that way for the last two years," he said. Speaking from the White House, which was invited to support the choice of the military operation , the popular , Hillary Clinton, hailed as a positive development the 'proposal' in Russia, but urged President Barack Obama not to relax the pressure on the regime of Damascus , warning that there will be no excuse for further delays and snags .

Paris announced that the Russian proposal deserves " screening " with Foreign Minister of France calls for ' clear , rapid and verifiable " commitments by the regime in Damascus. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called it " interesting" the Russian proposal . The Russian Foreign Minister intervened yesterday unannounced developments announcing that he had proposed to the Syrian regime imposing international control over the chemical arsenal and its destruction. Syria rushed to " welcome " the Russian proposal , by Foreign Minister Walid Muallem , without further details.

The UN secretary general , Ban Ki -moon proposed by the side of the buffer zones in Syria , which remain under the control of the United Nations where they can gather and destroy chemical weapons. Speaking of " troublesome paralysis" of the Security Council , said that " considering the possibility " to call for the urgent convening of to deal with the proposal.

Obama is now trapped in a vortex that does not lead anywhere, wanting to find a way out because the war will not drive nowhere, will based on the plan mentioned in previous Post ...http://ltsiorak.blogspot.gr/2013/02/full-speed-ahead-for-russian-american.html