Greece - Hellenic Army - History
The armed forces derive a rich heritage from the exploits of Greek military heroes — ancient, medieval, and modern — and are conscious of their traditions. The officer corps views itself as the embodiment of the nation's highest ideals and assiduously projects that image to the public. Greece has a history of military intervention in politics. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century the military was recognized as a generally progressive political and social force. During the 1967-74 military dictatorship, however, the military uniform became a symbol of oppression instead of devotion to patriotic ideals. The government of Prime Minister Constantine Karamanlis removed large numbers of officers from service who had been associated with the junta but did not permit blame for the dictatorship to fall on the armed forces as a whole.
The national security history of twentieth-century Greece can be divided into a pre-1974 period and a post-1974 period, when full civilian control of the military emerged, too late to forestall a disastrous misadventure in Cyprus but in time to end the continual internal political conflict that had made Greece vulnerable to outside domination and needing the support of powerful allies throughout the early twentieth century. The post-1974 period brought enhanced internal stability and the desire for greater independence in national security matters.
Greece was classified with the poor, agrarian, raw material-producing, trade-dependent, and externally indebted nations — in short, it was underdeveloped. The polarized political world of Greece featured political parties based on personality and patron-client relations and the largesse of a bloated state sector offered to supporters when the parties gained power. The years 1915—74 were marked by deep schisms between royalists and republicans, communists and nationalists, whose bitter struggles sapped the energy of reform. These conflicts resulted in frequent military interventions in politics, including military dictatorships in 1925—26, 1936—41, and 1967—74. In 1946—49, a bloody and destructive Civil War, following soon after the German occupation in World War II, deeply scarred all of Greek society.
During the political schism between royalists and republicans that continued for most of the first half of the twentieth century, the armed forces were first strongly monarchist and then also strongly anticommunist. Then, the events of the Civil War (1946—49) pitted the World War II resistance forces, which were dominated by the republican Communist Party of Greece (Kommunistikon Komma Ellados — KKE), against a royalist Greek army that had largely spent the war in exile. This conflict further bolstered anticommunism in the officer corps. In the postwar period, however, time and the process of national reconciliation have largely altered the strong conservative attitudes. Although modern Greece had enjoyed sustained and functional democratic institutions throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, the twentieth century brought with it nearly constant challenges to democratic institutions by competing models of monarchical authoritarianism and communist totalitarianism. For this reason, during most of the twentieth century, political scientists classified Greece in the "praetorian zone" on the fringe of Western democracy, together with states such as Spain, Portugal, and Turkey.
In the turbulent twentieth century, the external relations of Greece were shaped by two world wars, totalitarian ideologies, competing nationalisms, and the Holocaust, as well as by more specific international conflicts such as the Balkan Wars (1912—13) and the Greco-Turkish War of 1921—22. All these events, which were very much a reflection of general turbulence in Europe (and particularly in the Balkans), affected the setting of Greece's boundaries as they were formally defined in 1923 by the Treaty of Lausanne and in 1947 by the Treaty of Paris.
The organization of Greece's defense structure has evolved steadily since World War II. Before the removal of Greek forces from NATO's integrated command, changes occurred largely in order to accommodate to the weapons systems, logistics, communications, force levels, and tactics required by the affiliation with NATO. Civilian control of national security was reasserted in the 1975 Constitution. The president of the republic is commander in chief of the armed forces, but actual supervision and control is exercised by the prime minister through the Ministry of National Defense. The command structure was reorganized in 1977, allowing greater independence to the chiefs of staff of the individual services.
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