During the four decades of the Cold War, the undisguised adversarial relations between NATO and the Warsaw Pact (see Glossary) provided a high degree of stability in the Northern Hemisphere, albeit under the threat of general nuclear war. The end of the Cold War left previously well-defined global structures in a state of flux and raised the potential for new kinds of conflict- -based, for example, on long-standing ethnic animosities--to erupt in many areas of the formerly stable North. In this context, the primary national security priority of Greece is to safeguard its territorial integrity and to protect its democratic system and values.

To promote its security interests most effectively, Greece has sought to integrate its policies with those of its EU partners and its NATO allies. In particular, this attitude has meant wide acceptance of the notion that collective Atlantic-European policies will facilitate a stable, conflict-free transition to political democracy and a market economy in postcommunist societies in the Balkans, hence meeting Greece's national security goals.

Since late 1991, however, adherence to these general guidelines has been considerably impeded by Greece's high-profile involvement in an emotional dispute over the nomenclature to be used for newly independent Slavic Macedonia. In the mid-1990s, there was considerable political friction between Greece and fellow EU members as a result of Greece's unilateral embargo against FYROM. The action provoked sharp disapproval and threats of legal action by the EU (see Greece and the European Community , ch. 4). In addition, Greece's pro-Serbian sympathies and its refusal to back or in any way facilitate NATO air strikes on Serbian positions in Bosnia, as well as its refusal to contribute troops to peacekeeping forces in Bosnia, exacerbated Greek-EU tensions. Greece's efforts in the early 1990s to broaden and deepen ties with the EU, the WEU, and NATO were also complicated by disunity in the NATO alliance in the face of the strategic and ideological vacuum that remained after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Data as of December 1994

NOTE: The information regarding Greece on this page is re-published from The Library of Congress Country Studies and the CIA World Factbook. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Greece New Post-Cold War Concerns information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Greece New Post-Cold War Concerns should be addressed to the Library of Congress and the CIA.