Cyprus-Forum.com

[wyoming cowboy]

When you speak of the Greek cyprus defense pact and call it nonsense then you dont see the whole picture. If there is a conflict on Cyprus Greece, for its own national security, cannot afford to lose Cyprus outright. If they do loose Cyprus then the Aegean is lost also...therefore any conflict on Cyprus is a conflict between Greece and Turkey.

Turkey will take out weapons bought by CYprus if Cyprus thinks and acts inside the conventional military mindset.

There are advances being tested now which cancel out the usefulness of systems like jets and tanks and these new weapons are low tech and purely defensive and not likely to be a problem.

Turkey objected to the S300 because their range extended deep into her territory. Turkey has not said a word about short and medium range missiles which cover the whole of Cyprus and which the National Guard has had for many years.

But to get back to the new systems like passive radar, undectable to HARM missiles, and which can "see" stealth planes, or "clever" antitanks munitions that can be fired from conventional artillery, these are the advances that Cyprus outght to be looking at but is not. Like I said above, we have attached ourselves to the traditional military thinking taught by Greece and the USA.

THe role of the NG is not to land on Turkish territory and such nonsense. The role of the NG is to be able to resist any Turkish advance from land, sea or air, and to be able to hold out for at least two weeks. The assumption is that during any such period there will be a blockade of Cyprus and no aid from any other country.

The blockade of Cyprus and the severing of links with other countries is a current scenario of Turkish exercises in the space between Rhodos and Paphos. As a counter to these scenarios Cyprus and Greece put up the "unitary defensive area" dogma which is total nonsense, since it presumes that there is the political will in Greece to turn any local clash into a conflict from Famagusta all the way to the Turkish-Greek-Bulgarian frontier and all points between. This scenario is credible in the case of a Greek_Turkish incident, but not in the case of a Cyprus-Turkish incident.

The one indicator that we are thinking out of the box would be the announcement of a military research organization in Cyprus. Till then we are stuck.

[Nikitas]

Wyoming, hopefully our differing views will never be tested, but the joint defense dogma has degraded and there is not even one annual joint exercise between Greece and Cyprus now. The other side is still carrying out their Taurus exercise.