Prof. Dr. Ilias Iliopoulos is currently teaching International Relations and History at the University of Athens. He was awarded his Ph.D. (Dr. phil) from the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich. He had long been a Professor of Grand Strategy of the Great Powers, Naval History, and Strategy and Geopolitics of Sea Power at the Hellenic National Defence College and the Naval War College, and an Associate Professor of History of Western Civilization, Diplomacy, and Maritime History at the American College of Greece – Deree College
Copyright: @ 2026 Research Institute for European and American Studies (www.rieas.gr) Publication date: 13 April 2026
Note: The article reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily the views of the Re-search Institute for European and American Studies
In 1991, the then-Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mark Eyskens famously retorted that “Europe was an economic giant, a political dwarf and a military worm”.
His dictum has been ascertained during the latest Iranian crisis. For the real story of the conflict is not in the Middle East, but in what this conflict has once again revealed about the so called European Union: the EU did NOT shape the conflict, could NOT protect critical maritime chock-points and vital energy routes, and played NOT the least role either in the course of warfighting or in securing the ceasefire. Albeit all bombastic declarations of Brussels’ nomenclature about “Europe” being a “global power,” “geopolitical actor,” or even “superpower”, it is a plain fact that the EU is NOT a Great Power – nor shall it become one in the years to come. .... Read more