The Southern Flank of NATO, 1951-1959: Military Strategy or Political Stabilization

摘要

As Greece recently faced imminent bankruptcy and eviction from the Eurozone, one topic suddenly started preoccupying Western media analysts: the possibility that, in his desperation to keep his country afloat, Alexis Tsipras, Greece's recently elected, far-left populist prime minister, may sell his country for a few pieces of silver to the Russians and thereby tear the NATO alliance asunder. For a variety of reasons, nothing of the kind happened and it is possible that nothing of the kind was on the mind of even Prime Minister Tsipras. Still, that the possibility was seriously considered in Western academic, media and political circles is in itself a reminder of the peculiar and some would say precarious condition of NATO's southern flank - the swathe of states facing the Mediterranean, in which both Greece and Turkey have been seen as 'difficult customers' or just fair-weather allies since their initial admission into the Alliance in the early 1950s.