intelligence officials who do not take into consideration the views and priorities of the politicians they serve, may find their estimates deemed irrelevant by top-level decision-makers. Former head of Israeli military intelligence, Shlomo Gazit, comments on the requirement of ‘chemistry’ between the political leader and his intelligence chief, the importance of a reciprocal relationship, mutual trust and the need for constant communication, directions and feedback.25 However all these useful suggestions derive from his own military experience in the 1970s and 1980s, decades in which Israel was engaged in conflict with the Arabs, Egypt and Syria. Within the historical context of the 1980s and 1990s, the relationship between leaders and intelligence chiefs constituted different behavioural and structural arrangements in different cases. The experience of a Greek officer, who may have studied the Turkish armed forces for years but was not called up to fight in Cyprus or in the Aegean, is vastly different to an Israeli officer who found himself either on the desert battlefield in protection of his homeland or in constant dramatic communications with his political leadership during a conflict.
Others argue that leadership intelligence challenges the intelligence cycle and may cause confusion in the echelons of the intelligence and foreign policy establishment.26 The Anglo-American concept of the ‘politicisation of intelligence’ encompasses the attempts of the political and military leadership to influence the mid-level analyst’s estimates and conclusions in favour of their subjective policy positions.27 There are types and degrees of politicisation. As demonstrated in this study, the Greek ‘politicisation of intelligence’ took place in a domestic political context. It did not include the biased analysis of foreign threats or pressure from higher echelons on mid-level intelligence analysts. In these cases, Greek politicians simply ignored the foreign affairs and defence bureaucracy. Throughout the interviews with former diplomats and officers, no individual claimed that he had experienced pressure to change his estimate of Turkish foreign policy towards Greece. Most significantly, there was no evidence of political leaders attempting to pressure an officer into changing his assessment of operational and technical matters.
Professor Ben-Zvi refers to ‘motivated’ and ‘unmotivated’ sources of misperception and how it may influence the decision-maker. In some instances, leaders exhibit insensitivity toward new intelligence. They may disregard intelligence and foreign policy advice which identify current policy weaknesses, or a need to change their policies (and thus potentially lose credibility in the eyes of the electorate.) Decision-makers may also disregard the interests, aspirations and plans of their opponent’s foreign policy. On the other hand, they may overestimate and overstate the perceived threat in order to justify their own policies.28 There is a distinction between motivated and unmotivated perception bias in intelligence perception. Three types of interrelated variables affect the way of thinking and decision-making:
Cognitive variables (i.e. perceived values, biases, overconfidence, lack of empathy). Strategic variables (i.e. long/short-term bureaucratic or personal perceptions of the opponent’s strategy). Domestic political variables.29
The theses of MacArthy and Ben-Zvi are directly relevant to the Greek experience in the 1980s and 1990s. According to the historical evidence and testimonies, the key members of the first socialist administration under Andreas Papandreou were hostile toward the tenured officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the MoD and intelligence (considered to be rightists and ex-Junta supporters or sympathizers). Administration officials, strongly motivated by Papandreou’s socialist ideology, chose to rely on their own abilities to analyse intelligence and world affairs when assessing the Turkish threat to Greece. In addition, they were loyal and always adjusted their views in line with the opinions of Papandreou who had an authoritarian style of leadership within both his administration and his party, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK).30 Finally, it can be argued that the literature of Anglo-American and Israeli authors on the relationship between intelligence and leadership has been influenced by a number of modern conflicts which have experienced the threat of imminent conflict and the fear of strategic surprise. Conversely, later chapters demonstrate that Greek leaders and their staffs in the 1980s and 90s closely studied Turkish foreign and defence policy but they did not anticipate an imminent Greek-Turkish conflict. This meant that they took a more cool and detached attitude towards assessments debates and politicisation.
Intelligence and Crisis Management
The analysis of Greek-Turkish crises constitutes an integral part of this book. Professor Phillip Williams defined an international crisis as ‘a confrontation of two or more states, usually occupying a short time period in which the probability of an outbreak of war between the participants is perceived to increase significantly’.31 Similarly Michael Brecher describes a crisis as a ‘situational change in the external or internal environment that creates, in the minds of the incumbent decision-makers of an international actor, a perceived threat from the external environment to the “basic” values to which a responsive decision is deemed necessary’.32 In operational terms a crisis has four elements:
Perceived change in the external environment. Threat to basic (or non-basic) interests. High awareness of the eventuality of resorting to the use of force. The realization that the decision-makers have a finite/limited time framework to establish and implement a strategy for response.33
Williams refers to two main approaches in the discipline of crisis management. The first approach claims that crises occur in the international system like some sort of a ‘disease’ that no inter-state relations could avoid. The main task of crisis management is the avoidance of war and the formulation of diplomatic options to resolve the dispute in a mutually acceptable fashion. In contrast, the zero-sum approach regards crisis management as an opportunity for the advancement of national interests. Confrontation, coercion and the communication of any threats are integral parts of good crisis management and the main aim of skilful leadership is to get the opponent to back down.34 The zero-sum approach promotes a ‘zero-sum mentality’. The intentions, capabilities and behaviour of the opponent are always interpreted as hostile. This approach induces an increased sensitivity to threats, both real and imagined and may lead to counter-action and a further escalation of the crisis. In contrast, the understanding that crises are inevitable ‘diseases’ promotes a framework of interpretation or mindset which decreases threat sensitivity. The actions and decisions of the opponent are interpreted as initiatives primarily directed toward avoiding armed conflict and it is assumed that both sides share a mutual interest in the avoidance of war. Both approaches shape the analysis of intelligence during a crisis.
According to the principles of crisis management, one of the most important axioms is the limitation of objectives. The limitation and specification of foreign policy objectives during a crisis encourages restraint, builds mutual trust and as a result, the opponents may opt for restraint in their military and diplomatic responses. In parallel, the intelligence agencies identify the policy opportunities generated by the crisis, whose exploitation may lead to the advancement of the country’s interests. Another accepted principle of crisis management is the improvement of communication between policy makers and intelligence personnel (i.e. analysts and senior collectors). Moreover, crisis response needs to have legitimacy by promoting the legal and political positions of the parties involved to the international community and to world opinion. Force restraint is a crucial component of the strategy of legitimacy and of avoiding escalation.35
The aforementioned principles of crisis management should be considered a selective description of Cold War crisis management and not a rigid theory that covers every international confrontation. They are the products of scholarly and professional research in the West, primarily in American political science. It can be assumed, with a certain degree of safety, that officials in Turkey and Greece, as members of NATO and familiar with the US military training system for senior officers, understood and absorbed these well-known principles, despite the aggressive and nationalistic rhetoric and propaganda employed during a bilateral crisis. Indeed, a retired general admitted to the apparent ability of Turkish officers to adapt their operational military thought to NATO doctrines and practices. However they were also characterised by a blind obedience towards their superiors and exhibited a lack of initiative,
