Victor Davis Hanson
(Senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author, most recently, of The Case for Trump)
Copyright: https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/greece-finds-new-footing-as-a-player-on-the-world-stage/- June 6, 2019.
By balancing between rivals and finding new friendly interests, it magnifies its own importance. After Greece temporarily hosted a pair of U.S. military drones, Greek defense minister Panagiotis Kammenos said last fall that, “It’s very important for Greece that the United States deploy military assets in Greece on a more permanent base.” Indeed, Greece just took delivery of some 70 military helicopters that it had purchased from the U.S., and there have been discussions about basing American drones, air tankers and other military aircraft on Greek soil. COSCO, a state-owned Chinese shipping and logistics-services company, has invested more than 3.5 billion euros in renovating the historic Greek port of Piraeus, which is now the second-largest port in the Mediterranean. The Chinese brag that it will soon become the busiest. The massive renovation is part of China’s 35-year lease of two of the port’s container terminals and the Chinese purchase of a majority stake in Piraeus’s port authority. Read more