State foreign policies and why Greece's (and its institutions)

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