A Gap in NATO's Southern Flank

Whatever the outcome of the fighting on Cyprus, the real beneficiary of the Cypriot crisis will undoubtedly be the Soviet Union--at the expense of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The first weeks after the overthrow of Cypriot President Archbishop Makarios were bad enough for NATO, as it watched the deterioration of relations between two of its members, Greece and Turkey. But the alliance received a shock with Greece's withdrawal last week of its military forces from NATO'S integrated command. Greece's departure left a hole in NATO's southeast defenses against the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact.

Almost immediately, many of the 240 Greek liaison officers stationed at NATO installations throughout Europe packed their bags and started home. Greece's 35,000-man Third Army pulled back from its NATO-assigned position at Greece's Macedonian frontier with Bulgaria (a Warsaw Pact member) and headed eastward to Thrace and the Turkish border.

Emergency Session. The Greek action took NATO members by surprise. Joseph Luns, the Dutch secretary-general of the alliance, was vacationing in West Germany's Black Forest when he heard the news. He hurried back to NATO headquarters outside Brussels and immediately convoked an emergency session of the NATO Council. There, Anghelos Choraphas, the permanent Greek representative, officially announced his country's withdrawal. He reassured his former military allies, however, that Greece--for the time being--was remaining in the NATO political structure. After more than two hours of discussion, the Council declared that it had "urgently examined the consequences of the Greek decision," and called upon Greece to reconsider "as soon as possible."

While NATO will certainly survive the departure of Greece, one of the weakest powers in the alliance, it will be hurt tactically--more so even than when Charles de Gaulle withdrew France from the integrated command in 1966. Unlike France, Greece is part of NATO's front line, bordering directly on Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. Greece also controls, along with Turkey, the strategically important Aegean Sea, which is the Soviet navy's sole access to the Mediterranean from the Black Sea. "No question that Greece has been considered a key part of the common southern defense system," says a U.S. military expert. "Just look at a map. How do you bridge the huge military gap between Italy and Turkey?"

Lost to NATO now are: the 120,000-man Greek army, equipped with modern American weapons; the 160 jet fighters of the Greek air force that were to provide more than 15% of the combat planes available to NATO'S southern command (Greece, Turkey, Italy and the U.S.); and the Greek navy's seven submarines and 13 destroyers and destroyer escorts that helped the U.S. Sixth Fleet in maintaining a balance in the eastern Mediterranean with the increasing Soviet naval presence. No longer will the movement of Greek troops be coordinated by NATO, nor will they participate in joint maneuvers and training exercises. It is even possible that Greece will withdraw from the alliance's computer-operated, early-warning radar system, which runs from the Arctic Circle in Norway to Asia Minor. This would leave part of the periphery of the Warsaw Pact unmonitored by ground radar.

NATO could also lose Greece as a forward-base area. Although Athens has not yet ordered NATO forces to leave Greece, as De Gaulle did in France, the alliance's officials fear that they may soon be barred from the large missile firing range and air-weapons training center on Crete. Of even greater importance are America's seven military bases and five communications sites that exist in Greece under a bilateral Athens-Washington treaty not directly related to NATO. Greece could break the treaty, though at week's end, it had given no indication that it would do so. Loss of the sites would deprive America of its antisubmarine warfare base and Sixth Fleet resupply facilities at Crete's Suda Bay (described by one U.S. officer as "one of the best natural harbors in the world"). It would also mean giving up bases on Crete and near the Bulgarian border, where tactical nuclear warheads are stockpiled.

Docking Rights. At present, about 4,000 U.S. military personnel and 6,000 dependents are stationed in Greece, including those attached to the home-port facilities for six U.S. destroyers. The U.S. had also hoped to get docking rights for at least one large aircraft carrier in the country. The Greek bases are important because the next closest facilities available to the U.S. are in Italy, 1,000 miles to the west. Ships based in Italy would take longer to get to their assigned station in the eastern Mediterranean. This would reduce U.S. flexibility in the explosive Middle East.

Such a weakening of NATO and American tactical capability do not go unnoticed by Moscow. While the Greek defection from NATO will certainly not encourage the Soviets to launch an all out war--U.S. nuclear retaliatory force prevents that--it could embolden the Russians in the Middle East. For example, the Soviet fleet might be tempted in a future crisis to blockade Israeli ports or protect the movements of Syrian and Egyptian warships from Israeli forces. What could be even more disruptive to East-West stability, Russia --despite detente--might dare to intervene in the turmoil in Yugoslavia that is expected to follow the death of the aging Josip Broz Tito. For the past three years NATO units (including Greeks and Turks) have held exercises in northern Greece to practice intercepting Warsaw Pact forces if they move through Bulgaria on their way to invade Yugoslavia. Now, with Athens out of NATO, such a strategy becomes much more difficult and removes at least one deterrent, however minor in the scale of Soviet strategic considerations, to a Russian attack on Yugoslavia.

By leaving NATO, Greece also leaves itself open to attack by the Communist countries to the north, although such aggression at present is highly unlikely. Yet in that volatile area, even the improbable must be considered. American and NATO officials hope that as Greek leaders come to realize their potential danger, they will decide that they need NATO as much as, if not more than, NATO needs them.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.