State policies do not radically change overnight. No administration can
radically alter policy 100 days after its inauguration. This is true in
France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Canada, the USA and.....Greece.
States with a purpose (especially those with existential purposes,
Israel comes to mind), formulate deep and long term foreign policy and
in our day and age adapt the policy based on intelligence, simulations,
"war games", chaos theory, nonlinear dynamics and other mathematical and
statistics-based methods to predict or at least to have in hand moves
and countermoves as facts on the ground change.
Greece is adept in the soccer arena, but so far Greece's foreign policy
looks like they are playing American football instead of soccer. They
number of plays is set, the execution is fixed, and when the other
team's offence and defence plays soccer, Greece's foreign policy causes
her to drop her pants. Soccer is an ADAPTIVE AND DYNAMIC game and the
plan and tactics as well as the execution change every minute in real
time dependent on the plays of the opponent in real time.
Were Greece to be a soccer player instead of an American football
player, Obama would not have made those comments and US state policy may
have been different.
Facts:
1) Greece's intelligence services are.....well.....a laughable matter. A
simple read of the Steven Lalas issue demonstrates the joke. Can we add
four decades of politics within the "services" and politicised
appointments to further color and highlight the funny? If anyone is
interested in details, you can communicate with me in private. Greece
ceased having a serious intelligence service in the 40s, when the
Yphresia Allodapwn was dismantled. Those of you who know about Greek
security matters know the story and the evolution (or rather the
de-evolution).
2) The Greek Foreign ministry is an appendage of misguided and often
ignorant concepts put forward by "progressive" indigenous cooking pots.
ELIAMEP is the first and foremost proponent of a policy that Greece
should be a good boy, silent and a puppet of regional regimes as well as
larger controllers. These cooking pots revolve through the door of the
FM, direct the placement of staff and advisors and often choose for the
Foreign Minister.
3) The Diplomatic Corps. Now this is one of the BIGGEST jokes. There are
a few exceptions and there are some visionary and faithful people, but
they are often rapidly reassigned or demoted. Or retired. A simple visit
to the embassy in DC and a comparison of the activity across the street
of the DC embassy and inside the DC embassy is an eye opener.
4) The politicisation of foreign policy. Party hacks appoint useless and
often dangerous individuals after every election. There is no continuity
in state policy therefore.
5) The media. Given a dysfunctional (and nonexistent) intelligence and
diplomatic corps it is obvious why there are no proactive media programs
in Greek foreign policy. There used to be serious individuals (two
decades ago) in the Press Office of every Greek consulate who compiled
detailed data on Greece's media image in their country. Today, the press
office consists of folks who you can find more often at local
restaurants and other places of hedonistic recreation instead of meeting
with editors and opinion shapers of the media of the country in which
they are posted.
SOLUTIONS:
In my opinion:
1) Recreate the intelligence service from the bottom up. A complete
purge is in order. Start with smart, dedicated and PATRIOTIC people.
Enough with progressive sellouts and political lackeys. Take it out of
the control of the military and instead create a dedicated and smart
service. Look at Mossad and the Russian services (not their military
arm) as the examples.
2) Rebuild the structures and the diplomatic services of the FM from the
ground up. Start using sophisticated statistics and mathematical
algorithms in predictive "war games". Implement a serious press office
in every consulate and service abroad.
3) Absolutely GED RID OF SAE and all instances of such ideas and
concepts. If one has a serious intelligence service, a dedicated press
office and officers, intelligent "war gamers", a powerful diplomatic
corps and above all PATRIOTISM, there is no need for SAE and similar
misguided entities.
4) Engage the Diaspora at the grass roots level. Enough with political
connections and those needing back-scratching and quid pro quos. Fund
academic programs of relevance at the institutions that turn out the
largest number of people who will go on to government service in the
respective countries. Fund fellowships for people willing to serve
Greece's image and status in respected think tanks abroad. Establish
cultural museums and centers in every city that is relevant. Example:
The Turks (financed by Ankara) have flooded the US with more than 300
cultural museums and cultural centers in the past 5 years. WHERE IS THE
GREEK STATE?????
5) Engage the media with outreach. Put the money in serious lobbyist
hands and not "friends" and "family".
6) This world is now electronic. Take over the blogosphere like our
Israeli friends have. This is the new battlefield over opinions and
ideas. Volunteers like HEC for example can't fight alone.
This is a long reply and probably few have read this far.
I reiterate an earlier comment I made in another post:
Greece fails and will fail unless she becomes proactive, PATRIOTIC and
rebuilds the critical entities listed above.
As for the rest of us, we have a mission if we are indeed serious.
Engage your local media. Engage you local politics. Engage your
community. Put MONEY into what you preach on this list. Create cultural
museums in your community. Finance your library for a Greek section.
Engage your universities to fund Greek programs and studies.
Otherwise, pontificating on this list or typing to be the "magka" and
the "exypnos" is useless.
Nick Giannoukakis
Associate Professor
University of Pittsburgh
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