lower the probability of a predicted event. Many categories of data increase the number of possible scenarios. Thirdly, the long time span of a prediction negatively affects the probability of an event. Other political-military variables may affect the opponent’s political and military behaviour, plans and intentions, causing the opponent to act differently than expected.45 As shown in Chapter II and III, Belden’s probability estimates helped to evaluate the strategic threat assessment by Greek intelligence.
This study will focus on the analysis of the contingent-political warning and will provide evidence showing that Athens obtained a secret warning on possible Turkish contingency plans in response to a possible Greek initiative on the continental shelf in 1986-1987. In comparison to Betts’s and Ben Zvi’s theses on warning, the Greek warning was not related to a surprise offensive, but involved possible Turkish diplomatic intentions toward Greek sovereign rights and claims in accordance with the international law. Chapter V presents the Greek intelligence analysis of the 1996 crisis and demonstrates that the mobilisation of the Greek military for surveillance purposes around the Imia islets and the landing of Greek civilians on one islet may have caused the landing of Turkish journalists and, in general, the provocative Turkish actions towards Greek sovereign rights over the area.
The ‘Rules of the Game’
States engaged in confrontations over a long period of time learn a great deal about each other’s military behaviour from experience. A number of unwritten ‘rules of the game’ develop over the years. Any deviation from this unofficial body of rules causes second thoughts about each other’s tactical, operational and strategic intentions.46 In the case of Turkey and Greece, the rules of the game refer to the movement of aircraft and warships, the military exercises in the Aegean and the violations of their national airspace and international airspace regulations. Greece and Turkey found themselves facing intelligence analysis challenges linked to each other’s legal and political positions on the issues of airspace and sea boundaries. As examined in Chapter IV on the Greek-Turkish confrontation, quantitative studies, (e.g. how many Turkish violations of regulations in airspace take place annually) and qualitative studies (i.e. types of weaponry and pilots’ attitudes during dogfights) do not always help us to adequately define the Greek and Turkish military interaction and strategic intention of each other.
Moreover, during crises each side perceived the other’s legal and political arguments as invalid and instead viewed them as indications of current and future hostile, revisionist and manipulative intentions. Any proposals for discussions were interpreted as concessions or the legitimisation of the demands of the opposite party. The Greek administration in the 1980s, unwilling even to have political level communication with the Turkish government, interpreted any Turkish decision and diplomatic initiative as a high threat to Greek interests. However the stakes of every international crisis may not be calmly defined during the dramatic hours of high level consultations and in rapid intelligence briefings on the current military situation. The perceived aggressor in a crisis may seem to be challenging the sovereignty or national security of the defending state. When considering national interests, one must assess to what extent they are really threatened.47 It is usually the fear of precedent-setting actions by the opponent that causes crises excalating over exaggerated assessments and reactions.48 Conceptual images of the ‘defender’ and the ‘aggressor’ interfere with the effort for a distanced and dispassionate intelligence analysis. In Greek-Turkish relations, the unshakeable assessment of a long-term, centrally planned Turkish strategy aiming at the ‘thinning out of Greek sovereign rights’ in the Aegean Sea, created a image of a high threat and this subsequently affected the Greek intelligence analysis.49
The suspicion that a centralised strategy initiates a crisis for diplomatic-military advantages to be gained is as old as war itself. The analysis which regards every decision or deployment of the opponent’s military and diplomacy as centrally directed, prevails in crisis assessment and in some instances, may distort accurate assessment of the situation. Chance, randomness, co-incidences and blunders are not considered adequate explanations for events in crisis hours; especially when past personal memories and institutional history may be linked, even arbitrarily, to the current conditions in the minds of decision-makers and commanders.50 During a crisis, there is a constant mental effort to define the causation of events and the behaviour of the players. The quest for the enemy’s ‘secret plan’ is a human reaction to chaos and uncertainty.51 Nonetheless, the analyst, in a quest for the truth, should always ask himself and others: is there a secret plan of the opposite side?
This research shows that Greek intelligence had some secret information on possible, centrally directed Turkish decisions and actions before and during the crises in 1987 and 1996. In the crisis of 1996, Greek intelligence believed that a party of Turkish journalists who landed on Imia islet were in fact state-sponsored agents provocateurs (see Chapter V). However, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, high ranking officials at the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the MoD and NIS echelons, accepted the analyses of an aggressive centralised Turkish strategy without allowing for the possibility of coincidences and innocent tactical mistakes. The belief that Ankara had a highly organised and long-term strategy of expansion against Greece has existed to this day.
The concepts examined in this research, focus mainly on the scenario of a surprise attack against a sovereign state. In later parts of this research, evidence will show that the Greeks were preoccupied with the notion of a ‘staged crisis’, not a full scale Turkish attack. In Greek eyes, Turkey did not intend to invade an Aegean Greek island, but aimed at causing a crisis which could have forced Athens into negotiations over the Aegean disputes. Thus Athens had to constantly anticipate Turkish political intentions rather than just her military deployments, since Ankara could cause an Aegean crisis with provocative actions and decisions and take advantage of a Greek overreaction in order to further escalate the crisis. However whether such a crisis would involve the Turkish armed forces in full mobilisation is the subject of debate in chapters IV and V.
photograph © Courtesy of the Hellenic Navy General Staff 2010
Chapter I Post 1974 Greece
On 15th July 1974, the Greek-Cypriot National Guard and the Greek military in Cyprus staged a coup against the government under President/Archbishop Makarios III. The coup succeeded but Makarios escaped safely. However Turkey was provided with a strategic opportunity to invade the island (on the pretext of an interpretation of the Treaty of 1960 which had established the Cyprus Republic) and to occupy the northern territories in order to ‘protect’ the Turkish population from the new regime. The invasion took place on 20 July 1974 and faced little organized Greek resistance. The Athens Junta hesitated to respond militarily and eventually transferred the power to conservative politicians. Former Prime Minister Constantine Karamanlis, in self-exile in Paris since 1963, returned on the night of 23 July and assumed power during the dramatic days of the Cyprus crisis.
Karamanlis had the difficult task of planning an effective political and military response without the aid of the armed forces. The operational status of the Greek armed forces had been almost nullified by the seven-year Junta. The new Prime Minister opted for United Nations talks but a new Turkish invasion of Cyprus on 14 August 1974, extending the occupied zone, confirmed the hostile intentions against Greece and the Cyprus Republic. The predominantly anti-communist Greek military was also surprised by the new threat posed by a NATO member state in the East. Since the 1940s, the primary threat to Greece came from the communist regimes of Bulgaria, Albania and Yugoslavia.52 Until the invasion of Cyprus in 1974, Greek intelligence had not focused operations and analysis on Turkey. The disputes and clashes in Cyprus since the early 1960s had been considered by the KYP and MoD as ‘Cyprus-only, Greek-Turkish communities affairs’ and caused by the wrong policies of Archbishop Makarios.53 Athens did not respond militarily during the Cyprus conflict as they feared the invasion of Greek possessions in the Aegean.
The return to democracy was a great opportunity for politicians to create new parties, consolidate
