Greece seeking to boost air defense
The war in Ukraine and conflicts in the Middle East are speeding up the decision-making process
The military confrontations in the wider area around Greece, extending from the Middle East to Ukraine, have prompted Athens to expedite decisions aimed at a multi-level air defense (anti-drone, and medium-range anti-ballistic).
The crisis in Ukraine and, more significantly, Israel’s several Middle East confrontations have demonstrated that states faced by highly strategic opponents are unable to hold out for very long without dependable and potent air defense.
With the exception of the American Patriot missile systems, which are also equipped with anti-ballistic capabilities, Greece falls short when it comes to a dependable way to counter medium- or long-range threats.
The east Aegean islands do currently have an anti-drone umbrella, but it needs to be expanded.
A further problem that has surfaced since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine is the state of obsolete Russian (S-300, TOR-M1) or East German (OSA-AK) short-, medium- and long-range anti-aircraft systems.
Even if these systems could be supported with some relative reliability, their technology is finite and operationally in a modern warfare environment they could only play a subsidiary role.
The wider debate does not appear lost on Turkey, at least based on what President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said during the Defense Industry Executive Committee meeting on the “steel dome.”
All of these references are based on the Israeli Iron Dome, with Greek Defense Minister Nikos Dendias describing the development of a double anti-aircraft and anti-drone dome. Dendias has already stated that the option of building the domes will cost up to 2 billion euros, which has been set aside for this purpose.
Numerous contacts have been made with the Defense Ministry in recent months. France offered Thales radars and MBDA missiles, as well as Mica and Aster, as part of the Italian-French cooperation (SAMP/T NG). Germany also made an offer of Diehl’s IRIS-T system, which is also chosen by neighboring nations such as Bulgaria, which is currently discussing it. Israel has extended two offers. The first is for Rafael’s Stunner and Spyder systems, and the second is for IAI’s Barak MX, which recently bought Intracom Defense with the primary goal of expanding its export activities further into the EU domestic market.
