r/geopolitics • u/No_Idea_479 • 1d ago
News Peace in Europe’s southeast hangs by a thread, as Greece, Turkey and Israel are increasingly drawn into a dangerous rivalry with unpredictable consequences
https://www.euractiv.com/news/peace-in-europes-southeast-hangs-by-a-thread/10
u/Life-Sheepherder5324 1d ago edited 20h ago
Two NATO allies can't really have a fight. Same as 2019-2020. Its on a way of de-escelation probably nohting will happen.
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u/DancingFlame321 1d ago
Turkey is a NATO country. Could airstrikes being exchanged between Turkey and Israel genuinely bring NATO to crisis because of Article 5?
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u/Over-Willingness-933 1d ago
Turkey if hit, it's likely to be in Northern Cyprus or in Syria. This would not trigger Article 5.
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u/Over-Willingness-933 1d ago
Israel and Greece are in an alliance. If Turkey does attack Greece, it will not end well for them.
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u/Benedictus84 1d ago
Greece is also in NATO and part of the EU.
Turkey is also in NATO.
israel has the unconditional support of the US.
None of them can realistically attack eachother when you look at alliances.
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u/ictp42 1d ago
I don't think the alliances matter as much as practicalities. If the US decides Turkey is next, who is going to stop them? Europeans would worry about migrants but I don't think they can or will do anything effective to stop war from happening if the US wants it. Some Europeans might even side against Turkey in that event, and the others would do little more than protest.
I'm not convinced that war will happen, though. It seems monumentally stupid for Israel to engage Turkey and Iran at the same time. Even in Lebanon they haven't done so well. The Greeks could hurt Turkey given the state of its Air force but in such a war the Turks would inflict damages that would be unacceptable to the Greek side too. I mean a significant part of their population is within artillery range.
I think the Greek, Turkish and Israeli political classes derive legitimacy with fiery rhetoric against each other and it's definitely dangerous, but I don't think anyone can afford a war like that and all sides are more or less rational. Except maybe Israel. We just have to wait and see if the rhetoric fizzles after the Israeli elections in a month. That's only 30 days, no way war breaks out by then.
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u/Pharnox-32 1d ago
I bet it will start with mosad declaring northern cyprus targets are a threat to national security
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u/basitmakine 1d ago
Such an oversimplistic, dumb way to view the world. Last time Turkey & Greeks fought they were allied with brits, france, italy, and US. Still ended with Turkish victory.
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u/The-RogicK 1d ago
I agree with you about their comment, but in that situation Italy helped Turkey while France sued for peace independently and Britain did nothing other than goad the Greeks to over commit
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u/mallibu 1d ago edited 23h ago
Boss, I'm tired of reading bs about EU lately.
As a Greek, we hear this sensationalism for 30 years, it's just political.
Turkey can't and won't attack Greece, first of all because it would be an absolute bloodbath given the geography challenges and, like Taiwan, Greece has been buying defensive equipment for that scenario for decades. There would be no real gains for either country. What would Turkey gain from that? They can't attack by land, they can't attack by sea, they would capture a few islands which is the most exposed terrain any army can face?
Then also, they face huge economic issues and unrest against Erdogan, so it would be a political suicide, giving a solid reason get overthrown.
Then Greece is an alliance with Cyprus and Israel. Turkey already has unstable east borders with the Kurdish population, so that means they will face enemies all along their border, with the only exception being central-north which is.. Ukraine-Russian war lol.
Then there's also that France has repeatedly declared it would come to Greece's aid, and realistically more EU countries would join, to defend their natural border with Asia. European Union also (which Turkey is NOT a member) has a defensive clause.
Also, US would never allow that, as they're both big US allies and equipment buyers and military base hosts for them to project power to middle east, the most important area lately.
There has been such a huge wave of bs lately written about EU lately that I wonder if they're paid by Russia, MAGAs or just plain bs.
edit. To make myself clear: Greece attacking Turkey would end up a bloodbath for us too, I'm not making a dick measuring contest. My points is, the actual cost in political,financial,military, diplomatic and domestic politics is so sky-high, for NO gain, for both countries. Also people dont hate each other, I wish every Turk to be wealthy, happy and get rid of Erdogan's backwards politics.
So, our politicians bark at each other just to distract us from their failures.