Special to WorldTribune.com

ATHENS — Greece’s military, hampered by a budget crisis, has been
struggling with its rival Turkey.

Officials said the Greek military has struggled to maintain operations
amid Turkish penetration of Greece’s air space and territorial waters. They
said Greece was being outgunned by Turkey’s expanding military, the second
largest in NATO.

“The military isn’t just bleeding — it’s boiling,” Hellenic Navy
officer Yannis Katsaroulis said.

Officials acknowledged that the Greek military, with a $7.5 billion
budget in 2012, could not maintain its assets amid deep budget cuts.
They said the Hellenic Air Force could no longer fly many of its F-16
multi-role fighters because of a lack of spare parts and maintenance.

The Hellenic Navy has also been forced to restrict operations amid a
fuel shortage. The Hellenic Army has been unable to receive 400 U.S.-origin Abrams main battle tanks because it couldn’t afford to transport them from the United States. Military personnel have seen a 37 percent cut in their salaries.

Katsaroulis, in an interview with Germany’s Deutschwelle, said Greek
military officers warned Defense Minister Panos Panagiotopoulos of
growing unrest. They said the budget cuts, which reached nearly 30 percent
since 2010, were pushing many of the officers to vote for right-wing
parties.

“We recently met with the defense minister to voice our anger about the
cuts and one of us, a brigadier, piped up and said that we are all dead set
on voting for [the far right-wing] Golden Dawn in the next elections,”
Katsaroulis recalled. “I added, ‘Don’t be surprised if tanks roll out onto
the street and a military rebellion occurs.’ Everything is possible at this
point.”

Other officers agreed. They said Greece, which spends more on defense
than another other European Union member, could no longer compete with
Turkey, which routinely enters air space and waters claimed by Athens.

“Just the other day, a Turkish battleship strayed twice in Greek waters,
and what did we do?” Yiorgos Glitsis, a retired submarine officer, recalled.
“We chased it halfway through the Aegean with a ship half its size, like a
dinghy.”

  Abrams tanks, Golden Dawn, Greek military outgunned by Turkey amid deep budget cuts, Hellenic Air Force F-16s, Panos Panagiotopoulos, Yannis Katsaroulis