Está en la página 1de 17

Democratic Peace and the European Security

Community: The Paradox of Greece and Turkey

Fotios Moustakis and Michael Sheehan

In the decade since the end of the Cold War, the dynamics of European
security have altered out of all recognition. The new realities have prompted
a rethinking of the central concept of security and the creation of a new
political vocabulary to address the objectives of national and international
security policy.
When the Warsaw Pact disintegrated and the Soviet Union withdrew its
forces from Eastern Europe, many of the newly emerging Eastern European
states feared that they would be left in a zone of “diluted security” between
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Russian near abroad. They
sought to consolidate their democracies and the economic transition process
by pursuing early membership in the key European organizations, NATO
and the European Union.
There was a clear feeling that if these countries were left outside of these
organizations, their independence and security would remain threatened,
while inside the organizations they would be secure. This perception was
based on the belief that NATO was a democratic alliance that would defend
democratic member states and that membership in the EU had been a vital
stabilizing and democratizing factor in the successful democratic transitions
of Spain, Portugal, and Greece in the 1970s and 1980s.
Similarly NATO, with its Cold War rationale gone, sought to redefine its
mission as one of securing and expanding a zone of democratic peace in

Fotios Moustakis is a research fellow at the Scottish Centre for International Security, Department of
Politics and International Relations, University of Aberdeen, UK.
Michael Sheehan is director of the Scottish Centre for International Security.
70 Mediterranean Quarterly: Winter 2002

Europe. In doing so it appeared to embrace two important concepts of secu-


rity. The first was the Kantian democratic peace thesis.1 This is the idea that
democracies do not go to war with one another. Kant, in “Perpetual Peace,”2
had gone further and argued that what he called the republican (that is,
democratic) state was less prone to war than those with other forms of gov-
ernment. Subsequent history and research have led the contemporary pro-
ponents of the democratic peace thesis to advance the modest claim that,
while democracies are just as willing to use force as any other kind of state,
they appear to be unwilling to go to war with other democracies.3
The second concept is the idea of evolutionary security communities asso-
ciated with Karl Deutsch.4 Deutsch and his colleagues, in exploring the
question of the place of war in international relations, chose to sidestep the
usual question of “why do wars occur?” and seek instead an explanation for
the fact that certain groups of states appear to be exceptions to the assump-
tion that war is an inevitable reality. Explain why and how these “security
communities” were created and sustained, Deutsch believed, and there
would be at least the possibility of abolishing war from all regions of the
world. In the past one hundred years the most dramatic emergence and con-
solidation of a security community has been that of Western Europe.
British defense secretary Michael Portillo, discussing the NATO enlarge-
ment process in the mid –1990s, used arguments typical of the NATO mem-
bers at the time: “By embedding the democratic process in certain coun-
tries, and by providing standards to which others will aspire, enlargement
will enhance transparency and security throughout the trans-Atlantic com-

1. Michael Doyle, “Kant, Liberal Legacies and World Politics,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 12, no.
3 (1983): 205 – 35.
2. Immanuel Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” in Kant’s Political Philosophy, ed. H. Reiss (New York: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1991).
3. Bruce Russet, Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post –Cold War World (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993); T. Clifton Morgan and Sally H. Campbell, “Domestic Struc-
ture, Decisional Constraints and War: So Why Kant Democracies Fight?” Journal of Conflict Resolu-
tion 35, no. 2 (1991): 187– 211; Harvey Starr, “Democracy and War: Choice, Learning and Security
Communities,” Journal of Peace Research 29 (1992): 207–13.
4. Karl Deutsch et al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area: International Organization
in the Light of Historical Experience (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1957); Karl
Deutsch, Political Communities at the International Level: Problems of Definition and Measurement
(New York: Archon, 1970).
Moustakis and Sheehan: Democratic Peace and the European Security Community 71

munity.”5 Almost identical wording could have been used by the proponents
of the current expansion of the EU.
This perspective makes crucial assumptions. It assumes that NATO is a
family of democracies, that it is a security community, and that by joining
it, new democracies will ipso facto consolidate on the Western model as
free-enterprise democracies, and that since democracies presumably do
not fight each other, they would thereby expand the borders of the security
community. Expansion in turn was to occur at a slow and careful pace, so
that new members would not be brought in whose presence might threaten
the existing benefits enjoyed by the other members of the security com-
munity. At the NATO summit in Brussels in January 1994, the NATO
Council reaffirmed that the alliance remained open to membership for
other European states, as provided for in Article 10 of the Washington
Treaty.6 NATO declared that it would welcome new members as part of an
evolutionary process, taking into account political developments in the
whole of Europe. The alliance insisted that enlargement was not directed
against any state and that it was one element of a broad European security
architecture that transcended and rendered obsolete the idea of dividing
lines in Europe.7
The idea that NATO is a security community is a common one, and it is
described as such in the works of, for example, Ole Waever and Steve
Weber.8 The Economist in 1999 described NATO as “a club of democracies
whose stated aims include the promotion of lofty ideals like the rule of law
and civilian control over the armed forces.”9 NATO has been describing
itself in such terms consistently since the end of the Cold War, for example
in the 1990 NATO Handbook. Secretary-General Javier Solana was particu-

5. Michael Portillo, “Co-operation and Partnership for Peace: A Contribution to Euro-Atlantic Secu-
rity into the 21st Century,” in Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, Co-operation and
Partnership for Peace, RUSI Whitehall Paper, no. 37 (1996): 5 – 6.
6. Available online at www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/treaty.htm.
7. NATO Enlargement Study (Brussels: NATO, 1995), chap. 2, par. 9.
8. Ole Waever, “Insecurity, Security and Asecurity in the Western European Non-War Community,” in
Security Communities, ed. E Adler and M Barnett (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press,
1998), 69 –118; Stephen Weber, “Does NATO Have a Future?” in The Future of European Security,
ed. B. Crawford (Berkeley, Calif.: Center for German and European Studies, 1992), 366.
9. Economist, 7 August 1999, 46.
72 Mediterranean Quarterly: Winter 2002

larly fond of using this terminology, which was also prominent in the Wash-
ington Declaration on the fiftieth anniversary of NATO.10
But how valid are these assumptions? NATO was not a democratic
alliance during the Cold War, although an (imperfect) argument can be made
that it has become one since. It welcomed fascist Portugal as a member, and
when democracy in Turkey was overthrown by military coups in 1960, 1971,
and 1980,11 it did nothing. It did not take action to defend Greek democracy
when the military junta took power there from 1967 to 1974. President Clin-
ton apologized to Greece in 1999 for the fact that the United States had sup-
ported the military junta from 1967 to 1974.12
The idea that NATO is a security community is also problematic. Two of
its members, Greece and Turkey, have been in a state of high tension, with
risk of war for much of the past forty years. This raises important questions.
How can NATO call itself a security community when it embraces two states
as hostile as Greece and Turkey have been? In addition, if membership in
NATO has not led Greece and Turkey to form a security community after
four decades, where does that leave the assumption that ipso facto NATO
or EU membership would lead to a resolution of long-standing tensions
between such countries as Romania and Hungary, or Slovakia and Hungary,
or any other aspirant states from unsettled regions such as the Balkans and
Caucasus?
In seeking NATO membership in the early 1990s, the leaderships of
Eastern European states referred frequently to a basis of common values.
Polish prime minister Hanna Suchoka argued in 1993 that Poland’s wish to
join the Western democracies and the NATO alliance existed, “not because
we need some umbrella, but because we all share the same values and
objectives.”13 Similarly, the Czech representative at the Western European
Union Assembly argued that “we have the same system of values as you

10. See, for example, Javier Solana, “NATO — A Reliable Alliance for Dynamism and Leadership,”
NATO’s Sixteen Nations 42, no. 1 (1997): 7–10; “Washington Declaration,” 23 April 1999, at www.
usembassy.org.uk/nato85.html.
11. W. Hale, Turkish Politics and the Military (London: Routledge, 1994); M. Heper and A. Evid,
eds., State, Democracy and the Military: Turkey in the 1980s (Berlin: Walter de Gruter, 1988).
12. “Mea Culpa Kai Therma Logia,” To Vima (Athens), 21 November 1999.
13. H. Suchocka, “Address of Prime Minister Suchocka at the Royal Institute of International Affairs,”
London, 3 March 1993; author’s notes.
Moustakis and Sheehan: Democratic Peace and the European Security Community 73

have. We should like to take our part of the common responsibility for pro-
tecting that system of values.”14

Deutsch and Security Communities

The question of common values is central to Deutsch’s theory and to the


question of why the boundary of the NATO security community appears to
run through the Aegean and does not embrace Greece and Turkey.
In his famous 1957 study, Deutsch returned to the old problem of the
place of war in international relations. In the political-military context cre-
ated by the Cold War, he declared, “We can start with the assumption that
war is now so dangerous that mankind must eliminate it, must put it beyond
the bounds of serious possibility.”15 The way in which the 1957 study
attempted to do this was to investigate the problems involved in building a
wider political community.
Deutsch defined a security community simply as one in which there is
“real assurance that the members of the community will not fight each other
physically, but will settle their disputes in some other way.”16 The study
identified an array of factors that were deemed important in the creation of a
pluralistic security community. A strong emphasis was placed on domestic
factors. For Deutsch and his colleagues, peace was not simply the absence of
war. The delegitimization of war needed to be underpinned by domestic
political changes leading to greater cooperation and integration of all aspects
of social life.
Values reflecting criteria of legitimacy were critical in the evolution and
development of community-wide behavior. Deutsch recognized that the
resort-to-war threshold could exist for a significant period of time. Political
communities could cross and recross the potential for war preparation. Inte-
gration was not a matter of fact or a zero-sum concept. It was highly depen-
dent on long-term social stability and generational socialization to embed
values within groups participating in the formation of the security commu-

14. M. Necas, “Statement by Observer from the Czech Republic,” in Proceedings of the Fortieth Ordi-
nary Session of the Assembly of the Western European Union, pt. 1, vol. 2 (Paris: WEU, 1994).
15. Deutsch et al., 38 – 40.
16. Ibid., 5.
74 Mediterranean Quarterly: Winter 2002

nity. The key factors identified were a high correlation of the values of democ-
racy, social market economics, the rule of law, and a growing level of mutual
responsiveness among political communities.
Subsequent research by Adler and Barnett has strongly supported
Deutsch’s argument that since identities and interests are largely shaped by
their transactional environment, domestic socioeconomic practices hold the
key to expansion of the security community.17 This aspect is crucial if the
extension of the definition of security is seen in the context of an inter-
subjective definition of politics and political.18 The boundaries of a security
community need not arise solely from geographical, geopolitical, or cultural
factors but can also develop from the spread of shared values and ideas.
Adler and Barnett suggest that security communities progress through
nascent, ascendant, and mature phases, characterized by increasing types
and depths of transactions, development of shared traits and expectations,
and increased trust and self-knowledge. In particular, tightly coupled secu-
rity communities demonstrate a widespread commitment to cooperative
security measures, a high level of military integration, internal security
coordination, free movement of persons, and shared forms of governance or
rule making.19
As states move toward community, they no longer need to rely on balance-
of-power mechanisms to protect their security. The focus is on reassuring
neighbors rather than deterring them. Collective security, joint military
planning and integration, unfortified borders, free movements of people
across borders, and common definitions of both external and internal threats
are all hallmarks of security communities. Lebow suggests that “perhaps the
best evidence for the existence of a pluralistic security community is the
general absence of military plans by one community member for operations
against another.”20

17. E. Adler and M. Barnett, “Governing Anarchy: A Research Agenda for the Study of Security
Communities,” Ethics and International Affairs 10, no. 1 (1996): 63 –98.
18. J. S. Dryzek, Discursive Democracy. Politics, Policy and Political Science (Cambridge, Eng.: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1990).
19. E. Adler and M. Barnett, eds., Security Communities (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University
Press, 1998), 57.
20. R. N. Lebow, “The Long Peace, the End of the Cold War, and the Future of Realism,” Interna-
tional Organization 48, no. 2 (1994): 269.
Moustakis and Sheehan: Democratic Peace and the European Security Community 75

When Deutsch referred to major values he defined them as those that


were most important in domestic politics and gave as examples the “basic
political ideology . . . covered for the most part by the terms constitutional-
ism and democracy.”21
In analyzing the Greek-Turkish relationship, it is appropriate to focus on
this variable, both because it is central to Deutsch’s model and because it
overlaps with the democratic peace model. Kant, Montesquieu, and Schum-
peter all argued that liberal (democratic), domestic constitutional and insti-
tutional mechanisms would make states inherently less warlike.22 Michael
Doyle revived the debate on this thesis during the 1980s.23
The concept of democracy has evolved through the centuries, and the cri-
teria for defining democracy are to a degree contested, but there is a con-
sensus on the core elements, if not on their relative importance. Democracy
is associated with a voting franchise that embraces a substantial proportion
of the adult population, a government brought to power in contested elec-
tions, an executive either popularly elected or responsible to an elected leg-
islature, and an array of civil liberties such as free speech and rights to
political organization.24 Schweller’s definition further requires the govern-
ment to be internally sovereign over military and foreign affairs.25
Samuel Huntington defines a democratic political system as one in which
the key decision makers are chosen in regular, competitive elections but
points out that limitations on power are implicit in a democratic system. A
political system cannot be considered democratic if it is merely a facade for
the exercise of power by a nondemocratically chosen group.26 Similarly, Linz
21. Deutsch et al., 124.
22. Immanuel Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” in Kant’s Political Philosophy, ed. H. Reiss (Cambridge,
Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1991); C. L. de Secondat de Montesqieu, The Spirit of the Laws
(Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1989); J. A. Schumpeter, Imperialism and Social
Classes (New York: A. M. Kelly, 1951), esp. the chapter “The Sociology of Imperialism.”
23. Michael Doyle analyzes the approaches of Kant and Schumpeter in “Kant, Liberal Legacies and
World Politics” and “Liberalism and World Politics,” American Political Science Review 80, no. 4
(1986): 1,151– 69.
24. A useful discussion of these issues can be found in R. Merritt and D. A. Zinnes, “Democracies
and War,” in On Measuring Democracy: Its Consequences and Concomitants, ed. A. Inkeles (New
Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1991), 207– 34.
25. R. L. Schweller, “Domestic Structure and Preventive War: Are Democracies More Pacific?” World
Politics 44, no. 2 (1992): 235 – 69.
26. Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman
Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), 7.
76 Mediterranean Quarterly: Winter 2002

and Stepan describe what they call the “electoralist fallacy,” the acceptance
of elections as a sufficient condition for democracy. They argue that even
with elections and a democratically elected government, a previously ruling
military, for example, may retain extensive privileges, even though it has
relinquished direct control. Turkey can be seen to fit this model. Elections
need to be accompanied by the granting of extensive civil liberties and the
existence of legally bound state institutions.27
In the past twenty years the idea that democracies do not fight each other
has received considerable attention from academics, policy analysts, and
political leaders. The democratic peace thesis contends that while democra-
tic states are as prone to war as other regimes, (contra Kant and Mon-
tesqieu), they are less likely to fight wars against each other.28 Russett et al.
argue that democratic peace can be explained by cultural/normative and
structural/institutional reasons.29 The former assumes that democracies are
less disposed to fight each other due to the impact of their shared norms,
while the latter suggests that constraints on the policy-making choices of
democratic leaders act as a brake on their foreign policy decision making
with regard to escalating conflict with other democracies.30

The Bilateral Relationship in the Aegean

Since NATO sees itself and is seen by others as a security community and a
zone of democratic peace, it is necessary to examine the record of Greek-
Turkish relations to determine whether or not it conforms to expectations. It
27. J. J. Linz and A. Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation (Baltimore, Md.:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 3 – 4.
28. Z. Maoz and N. Abdolali, “Regime and International Conflict, 1816 –1976,” Journal of Conflict
Resolution 33, no. 1 (1990): 3 – 35; M. Small and D. Singer, “The War-Proneness of Democratic
Regimes, 1816 –1965,” Jerusalem Journal of International Relations 1 (summer 1976): 50 – 69; H.
Starr, “Democracy and War: Choice, Learning and Security Communities,” Journal of Peace Research
29, no. 2 (1992).
29. B. Russett et al., Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post–Cold War World (Prince-
ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991), 43 –71.
30. Similar views are expressed by Michael Doyle, “Liberalism and World Politics,” 1,151–70; S.
Kober, “Idealpolitik,” in Conflict after the Cold War: Arguments on the Causes of War and Peace, ed.
R. K. Betts (New York: Macmillan, 1994), 250 – 62; T. C. Clifton and S. Campbell, “Domestic Struc-
ture, Decisional Constraints and War,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 35, no. 1 (1991): 187– 211; J.
Owen, “How Liberalism Produces Democratic Peace,” International Security 19, no. 2 (1994):
87–125.
Moustakis and Sheehan: Democratic Peace and the European Security Community 77

will be argued that it clearly does not. The subsequent section will analyze
why this is so.
During the Cold War, eastern Mediterranean security issues were defined
by NATO largely in terms of the Soviet threat. Greece and Turkey were seen
as important because they helped control Soviet access to and influence in
the Aegean, the Balkans, and the Middle East. At the same time, the exis-
tence of key “choke points” in the Aegean and the Turkish Straits was con-
sidered by NATO to be a formidable barrier to any Soviet attempt to chal-
lenge the status quo in the Mediterranean.31 Greece and Turkey were
therefore welcomed into NATO in February 1952. However, while other
NATO members focused on pursuing a strong commitment to collective
defense during the Cold War era, Greece and Turkey soon became caught up
in a series of divisive regional disputes.
The issue of Cyprus drove a wedge between the two NATO allies almost
as soon as they became members. Greek Cypriot efforts to achieve unifica-
tion with Greece sparked murderous anti-Greek riots in Turkey in 1955,
which caused Greece to withdraw from NATO exercises for the first time.
Intercommunal violence in Cyprus in turn led Turkey to assume public
responsibility for the welfare of the Turkish Cypriot community.32 Far from
pursuing peaceful means to resolve the dispute, Turkey bombed and threat-
ened to invade Cyprus in 1964 and was dissuaded from doing so only by
joint Soviet-American diplomacy. During the 1967 crisis, Turkey once again
threatened the use of force, and Greece responded to a Turkish ultimatum
by withdrawing from Cyprus all the troops that it had stationed there since
1964.33 Against this background, the Turkish invasion, which eventually
occurred in 1974, was always seen as highly likely, though not absolutely
inevitable.34
The 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus raises crucial issues for security the-
31. I. O. Lesser, “Mediterranean Security: New Perspectives and Implications for U.S. Policy,” RAND
Report (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1993): 5 – 6.
32. By June 1958 about one hundred Greek Cypriots and a similar number of Turkish Cypriots had
died in this violence, and large numbers of the latter had fled from thirty-three previously mixed vil-
lages to areas of Turkish majority.
33. Van Coufoudakis, “Greek-Turkish Relations 1972 –1983,” International Security 9 (1985).
34. For detailed analyses of the Cyprus dispute, see Richard Haass, “Alliance Problems in the East-
ern Mediterranean — Greece, Turkey and Cyprus,” Adelphi Paper (1988); Monteagle Stearns, Entan-
gled Allies: U.S. Policy toward Greece, Turkey and Cyprus (New York: Council on Free Press, 1992).
78 Mediterranean Quarterly: Winter 2002

ory, both in terms of security community and democratic peace. A NATO


member, using NATO forces, removed thirty-five thousand men from NATO’s
order of battle in order to invade and occupy a substantial portion of another
democratic European country. Turkey went on to effectively colonize another
member of the Western European democratic community. Turkey effectively
annexed 37 percent of the territory of the Republic of Cyprus, 52 percent of
its coastline, 70 percent of its exploitable natural resources, and 65 percent
of its tourist infrastructure. Turkey at the time had a constitutionally elected
government, yet it had invaded the territory of another democracy.
The shambles in Cyprus led to the collapse of the Greek military junta
and the restoration of democracy in Greece. An early decision of the new
Greek democratic government of Constantine Karamanlis was to withdraw
Greece from NATO’s integrated military structure in protest at what was
seen as the American government’s indifference to the Turkish invasion and
occupation of Cyprus. The possibility of war with Turkey was considered but
dismissed because of the weakness of the Greek armed forces compared to
those of Turkey.35 From this point on, the Greek perspective was that in vio-
lating its international commitments Turkey had demonstrated that it was a
real threat to Greek sovereignty and security. The eventual return of Greece
to the NATO force structure was based solely on the belief that outside it
Greece would be less able to resist Turkish territorial claims in the Aegean.
Greek governments believed that the Warsaw Pact was no longer the primary
threat, but that “the primary and immediate threat to Greece was posed by
the revisionist policies of fellow NATO ally Turkey.”36
In addition to the Cyprus dispute, four other critical issues have given
rise to serious tension between Greece and Turkey. These are:

1. the delimitation of the continental shelf,


2. the extent of Aegean territorial waters,
3. the allocation of operational responsibility for the Aegean air space
within the NATO framework, and

35. C. M. Woodhouse, Karamanlis: The Restorer of Greek Democracy (Oxford, Eng.: Clarendon,
1982).
36. T. Couloumbis, The United States, Greece and Turkey: The Troubled Triangle (New York: Praeger,
1983), 141.
Moustakis and Sheehan: Democratic Peace and the European Security Community 79

4. Turkey’s complaints regarding the demilitarization of the islands of the


eastern Aegean.

With regard to the delimitation of the continental shelf, Greece argues


that customary international law, as accepted by both the 1958 Convention
on the Continental Shelf and its successor, the 1982 United Nations Conven-
tion on the Law of the Sea UNCLOS III), allows exploration and exploitation
rights over the Greek continental shelf up to one hundred miles from its
coastal and island baselines. Turkey insists that the difference to be settled
concerns the partition of the entire Aegean continental shelf and that Turkey
is entitled to areas of continental shelf west of the Greek islands up to the
middle of the Aegean. Ankara also argues that much of the Aegean seabed
is in fact a prolongation of the Anatolian landmass.37
Because Turkey itself wishes to exploit the seabed, it has not questioned
the right of a sovereign coastal state to explore and exploit the natural
resources of its continental shelf. By this logic, Turkey does not accept that
the Greek islands are entitled to a continental shelf. It argues thus, both
because of the proximity of the Greek islands and because otherwise, by the
Greek formula, nearly 97 percent of the Aegean seabed beyond Turkish ter-
ritorial waters would be Greek.38
As with other aspects of the Greek-Turkish relationship, the essence of
this dispute is the question of sovereignty. Turkish insistence on a demarca-
tion line for the continental shelf midway between the Greek and Turkish
mainland intensifies Greek fears.39 Athens sees this demarcation line as a
direct threat to Greece’s sovereignty over the many Greek islands that lie to
the east of the line. Turkey would have justification for establishing an eco-
nomic zone with installations and a rationale for creating a security zone to
defend it. The Greek government argues that these islands form a political
continuum with the Greek mainland and that with increased regional pene-
tration Turkey could interfere with internal Greek sea and air communica-

37. T. Bahcheli, Greek-Turkish Relations since 1955 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1990), 130 – 2.
38. For an excellent analysis of the dispute over the continental shelf, see M. N. Schmitt, “The Greek-
Turkish Dispute,” Naval War College Review (summer 1996): 52 –9. See also J. M. van Dyke, “The
Aegean Sea Dispute: Options and Avenues,” Marine Policy 20, no. 5 (1996): 397– 440.
39. See the official opinion of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs at http://zeus.hri.org/MFA/
foreign/bilateral/aegean.htm.
80 Mediterranean Quarterly: Winter 2002

tions. The islands would then become enclaves whose sovereignty would be
threatened.
The most divisive of all the Aegean disputes is that over Greece’s territor-
ial sea. Until UNCLOS III in 1982, the issue of the breadth of the territorial
seas had caused little difficulty, because both countries claimed a six-mile
territorial water boundary in the Aegean, which was perfectly workable.
However, UNCLOS III allowed every coastal state to claim territorial waters
to a distance of twelve nautical miles. Given the configuration of the Greek
islands in the Aegean and the fact that islands are normally deemed to cre-
ate territorial seas of their own, extension of the territorial limit would
increase the Greek portion of the Aegean to about 64 percent, while Turkey
would have only 10 percent.40 High seas would shrink from about 56 to 26
percent, and all ships leaving Turkish ports for the Mediterranean would
have to pass through Greek territorial waters. Turkey argues that the recog-
nized right of “innocent or transit passage” is an inadequate guarantee and
that it would become vulnerable to total enclosure.41
The aircraft control regime in the Aegean is also a source of dispute. In
1952 and 1958 the International Civil Aviation Organization designated the
Athens Flight Information Region (FIR) to coincide with the sea and air
boundaries separating Greece from Turkey. A demarcation line separated
the Athens and Istanbul FIRs roughly following the outer edge of the exist-
ing Turkish territorial sea. Greece, therefore, had responsibility for civilian
and military air traffic over almost all of the Aegean. To have placed the line
further west would have required Greek aircraft to pass through a Turkish
control zone on flights to and from Greek islands in the Aegean.
This agreement worked satisfactorily for more than two decades but was
challenged by Turkey immediately following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus
in 1974. In August 1974 Turkey issued NOTAM 714 (Notice to Airmen), by
which it unilaterally extended its area of responsibility up to the middle of
the Aegean, well within the designated Athens FIR. Greece responded on 7
August with NOTAM 1018, denying the validity of the Turkish action and
reasserting its own authority. This was followed by Greek NOTAM 1157 on

40. A. Wilson, “The Aegean Dispute,” Adelphi Paper, no. 155 (1980): 36 –7.
41. Schmitt, 48 –9.
Moustakis and Sheehan: Democratic Peace and the European Security Community 81

13 September 1994, declaring Aegean airspace a danger zone. Predictably,


the results were disastrous for the tourist industries of both countries. Even-
tually, in 1980, Turkey withdrew NOTAM 714.42 Nevertheless, Turkey con-
tinues to violate the Athens FIR with military aircraft under the pretext that
the Chicago Convention applies only to civil aviation.43
The fourth source of friction concerns the fortification by Greece of cer-
tain eastern Aegean islands. Turkey argues that this is a breach of the Lau-
sanne Treaty and Convention (1923) as well as the Paris Treaty of 1947
(although Turkey was not a party to the latter because of its neutral status
during the Second World War). The Greek position is that the right to install
military forces on the islands of Limnos and Samothrace was established by
the Treaty of Montreux of 1936 and has repeatedly been recognized by
Turkey.44 With regard to Lesvos, Chios, Samos, and Ikaria, Greece argues
that the Treaty of Lausanne imposes partial demilitarization and not total
demilitarization, as Turkey insists.45 Greece argues that, on the contrary, the
presence of some military forces is foreseen in the agreement and that
Greece requires such a military presence because of the need to protect its
eastern frontier. For the same reason, Greece maintains national guard units
on the Dodecanese Islands, which have been registered within the frame-
work of the Treaty for Conventional Forces in Europe. In reality, though
designed as such, these units do not differ in training or equipment from
those of the regular Greek army and are led by regular army officers.
Greece also notes that under Article 51 of the UN Charter, every country
has the inalienable right of the legitimate defense of its territory. For Greece
this is clearly appropriate, given the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 and

42. For the official positions of the two governments on the Aegean status quo see www.hri.org/MFA/
foreign/bilateral/aegean.htm and www.mfa.gov.tr/grupa/ad/ade/adeb/default/htm.
43. The Chicago Convention of 1944 is the cornerstone of civil aviation law and provides that “every
state has complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above its territory,” territory being
defined as “land areas and territorial waters thereto.” Although the convention is applicable only to
nonstate aircraft, and while most disputes involve military “intrusion,” it is further evidence of cus-
tomary law defining the boundaries of aerial sovereignty, regardless of the character of the aircraft.
See M. N. Schmitt, “Aegean Angst: The Greek-Turkish Dispute,” Naval War College Review (summer
1996): 59.
44. See the preamble to the Montreux Convention and the subsequent statement to the Turkish par-
liament by the foreign minister in Record of the Grand National Assembly (Turkey), vol. 12, 1936,
309.
45. Schmitt, 64.
82 Mediterranean Quarterly: Winter 2002

the formation by Turkey of the 4th Army Group, which is stationed directly
opposite to the Greek islands and which possesses the largest fleet of land-
ing craft in the Mediterranean.46 Turkey insists that the 4th Army is com-
posed largely of training units, but its numbers, equipment (zodiacs, land-
ing crafts, and transport helicopters) and deployment are hardly consistent
with such a role. Unlike its other forces, the 4th Army is not assigned to
NATO. Turkey, in contrast, argues that the militarization of the islands is a
clear breach of the Lausanne Treaty and that the islands are so close to the
Turkish mainland that their demilitarized status is essential for Turkey’s
security.47
For most European countries, the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the
Soviet Union triggered a profound change in their security policies. Greece
has been the exception to this pattern, because for decades Greek security
considerations have been dominated by the threat from Ankara, not that
posed by Moscow.
Since 1974 the first priority of Greek foreign policy has been the consoli-
dation of democracy and the quest for economic convergence with more
advanced EU partners. Greece has simultaneously pursued economic inte-
gration through the EU and relied upon NATO for the provision of collective
defense. The second priority has been the maintenance of an acceptable
military balance between Greece and Turkey, particularly regarding naval
and air forces, while trying to avoid the destabilization of the Greek econ-
omy through a costly arms race.48 Greek military expenditure over the past
three decades has been driven mainly by the military capabilities of Turkey.
The 1996 – 2000 rearmament plan had the specific purpose of attempting
to regain Greek qualitative superiority over Turkish forces.49 As a result,
Greece’s defense burden has been among the heaviest among the Euro-

46. L. Kaplan, R. Clawson, and R. Lurangi, NATO and the Mediterranean (Wilmington, Del.: Schol-
arly Resources, 1985).
47. A. Karaosmanoglu, “Turkey and the Southern Flank: Domestic and External Contexts,” in NATO’s
Southern Allies, Internal and External Challenges, ed. J Chipman (London: Routledge, 1988), 340 –
41.
48. T. Couloumbis, “Strategic Consensus in Greek Domestic and Foreign Policy since 1974,” Thesis:
A Journal of Foreign Policy Issues (winter 1998): 2, from the Web edition at www.zeus.hri.org/MFA/
thesis/winter98/concensus.html.
49. A. Platias, “Greek Deterrence Strategy,” in The Aegean Sea after the Cold War, ed. Aldo Chircop,
Andre Gerolymatos, and John Iatrides (London: Macmillan, 2000), 74.
Moustakis and Sheehan: Democratic Peace and the European Security Community 83

Atlantic countries, averaging 5.6 percent of GDP.50 From 1984 to 1994,


Greek defense spending increased by 65 percent. Despite this, Turkey has
continued to enjoy significant military advantages, including a four-to-one
advantage in manpower, three-to-one in tanks and armored fighting vehi-
cles, three-to-one in military aircraft, and a modest advantage in naval com-
bat vessels.51 In 1998 the Greek government announced a mammoth 750
billion drachma rearmament program over the ensuing five years.52 Defense
Undersecretary Dimitris Apostolakis justified the program by declaring sim-
ply that “the Turkish threat exists.”53 Public reference to the Turkish threat
remained standard until summer 1999. For example, in 1987 the Greek
prime minister told parliament that “our arms competition with Turkey along
the quantitative dimension leads nowhere. Hence, emphasis should be given
primarily to the qualitative improvement of our defense system in its
entirety.”54
The arms race aspect of Greek-Turkish tension has paradoxically been
made worse by NATO’s own actions. Since all NATO states had to destroy
surplus equipment under the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, NATO
decided to use surplus equipment to modernize less well equipped allies
while scrapping larger quantities of their older equipment. Under this cas-
cading program Turkey, for example, has received seven hundred M60 tanks
and four hundred German Leopard tanks to replace its ancient M48 tanks.55
On a number of occasions, Greek-Turkish enmity has brought the two
countries to the brink of war, notably in 1964, 1974, and 1996. The 1996
crisis was over a small group of disputed islets, Imia/Kardak. Although the

50. C. Kollias, “The Greek-Turkish Conflict and Greek Military Expenditure, 1960 –92,” Journal of
Peace Research 33, no. 2 (1996): 217.
51. See C. Kollias and S. Makrydakis, “Is There a Greek-Turkish Arms Race? Evidence from Co-
integration and Causality Tests,” Centre for Planning and Economic Research [CPER] Discussion
Papers, no. 60 (1997); V. Stavrinos and A. Balfoussias, “The Greek Military Sector and Macroeco-
nomic Effects of Military Spending in Greece,” CPER Discussion Papers, no. 51 (1996); SIPRI Year-
book 1999 (Oxford, Eng.: Oxford University Press, 1999), 320.
52. Athens News Agency, “Daily News Bulletin in English,” 10 October 1998, at http://zeus.hri.org/
news/greek/ana/1998/98-10-10.ana.html.
53. Ibid.
54. Greek Premier’s Speech to Parliament, Journal of Parliamentary Debates, period D, sess. B, 23
January 1987, 2,912.
55. The Military Balance 1995 – 96 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1996),
62 – 3.
84 Mediterranean Quarterly: Winter 2002

islands were unpopulated, Greece saw a direct Turkish territorial claim on


sovereign Greek territory, and this reinforced the continuing Greek concern
over Turkish respect for international agreements and established interna-
tional boundaries.56 Turkish prime minister Tansu Ciller threatened war with
Greece over the issue and subsequently declared that the extension of Greek
territorial waters to twelve nautical miles would also be seen as a casus belli
by Turkey.57
During the 1990s, Greek foreign and defense policy was strongly support-
ive of the concept of collective security in Europe, missing few opportuni-
ties to affirm its belief in the value of collective security organizations and
approaches. This emphasis on the danger of threats from within an interna-
tional subsystem or alliance rather than external threats was entirely consis-
tent with Greece’s perception of Turkey as the main threat for its security.58

Conclusion

According to security community and democratic peace theory, democracies


do not go to war with each other and do not threaten each other with war. It
is clear from the above that the Greek-Turkish dyad does not fulfill these
requirements. The two countries maintain armed forces equipped and
deployed with the possibility of a war with the other in mind. In times of
crisis they have contemplated war and threatened war with each other. In
1974 Turkey attacked a fellow democracy. None of this behavior is consis-
tent with the idea that NATO members are ipso facto members of a security
community.
The assumption that NATO is a security community and a zone of demo-
cratic peace is not entirely true. This has important implications in terms of
the positive expectations surrounding the expansion process. Membership
itself does not create or reinforce the behavior expected from the members of
such a community. This is the lesson of the Greek-Turkish example.

56. Van Coufoudakis, “Greek Foreign Policy in the Post–Cold War Era: Issues and Challenges,”
Mediterranean Quarterly 7, no. 3 (1996): 33.
57. Turkish Daily News, 1 February 1996, at http://zeus.hri.org/news/agencies/trkn/96-02-01.trkn.
html.
58. S. Victor Papacosma, “NATO, Greece and the Balkans in the Post–Cold War,” in Greece and the
New Balkans, ed. V. Coufoudakis, H. Psomiades, and A. Gerolymatos (New York: Pella, 1999), 64– 5.
Moustakis and Sheehan: Democratic Peace and the European Security Community 85

The Greek-Turkish dyad fails to meet the requirements because its mem-
bers have not ceased to plan for war against each other or to threaten the use
of force during crises. Having demonstrated a willingness to seize and
occupy the territory of a democracy (Cyprus) in 1974, Turkey continues to
alarm Greece with territorial claims, such as those made by the Ciller gov-
ernment in 1996.59 There is a lack of the trust expected in a security com-
munity. Whether Greece or Turkey is correct in the various territorial and
legal disputes is not the central issue. The crucial point is that in a genuine
security community none of these disputes would take the form that they do.
Belgium does not feel threatened because ships leaving Antwerp for the sea
transit Dutch waters, nor do Britain and France station forces around the
Channel Islands in the expectation of violence. Germany has not withdrawn
an army corps from the NATO order of battle with its possible use against
Denmark in mind. Yet this kind of behavior is typical of the Turkish attitude
toward its Greek ally. Similarly, Greece sees Turkey as its main enemy and
structures its forces with war against Turkey in mind. The behavior of
Greece and Turkey clearly demonstrates that the fundamental requirements
for a security community relationship are not being met.
From the point of view of normalizing Greek-Turkish relations and trans-
forming them into those genuinely typical of a security community, there is
no evidence to suggest that mutual NATO membership has a positive role to
play. It certainly has not done so in fifty years of common membership to
date. The most hopeful route to achieving a new relationship is in fact the
EU. This makes the decision made by the EU at Helsinki in 1999 to accept
Turkey as a candidate a crucial development.60 It also suggests that EU
efforts to develop a harder post-Petersburg military security identity are not
helpful in terms of consolidation of the security community in Europe.61

59. Andre Gerolymatos, “The Military Balance of Power between Greece and Turkey: Tactical and
Strategic Objectives,” in The Aegean Sea after the Cold War, 49.
60. European Union, “Presidency Conclusions, Helsinki European Council,” 10 and 11 December
1999, at www.europa.eu/int.
61. Western European Council of Ministers, “Western European Union Council of Ministers Peters-
burg Declaration,” Bonn, 19 June 1992, at www.weu.int.

También podría gustarte