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REVISTA IEEE 9

http://revista.ieee.es/index.php/ieee 251 Salvador Sánchez Tapia Defining a model for analysis of civil-military relations... This situation is exacerbated by a constitutional provision that restricts public debate on a broad range of issues, not necessarily classified, related to the armed forces,51 and by a political culture with an underdeveloped and poorly organized civil society52 with a sparse network of civil organizations like think tanks, lobbies, or pressure groups to scrutinize the activity of the armed forces and act as fire alarms to redress potential excesses.53 Recruitment in Greece does not seem to be an issue currently, if only because the military maintains a conscription system that seems to be broadly accepted.54 Cases of draft evasion and conscientious objection are officially few; partly because draft evasion is severely punished and conscientious objection penalized with substantially longer terms of service; partly because the almost universal agreement on the existence of an external threat. The future, however, looks less rosy. Demographic projections show that the manpower available for military service will decrease in 2019 to 42,3 percent of the total population, from its current level of 45,7 percent.55 This trend is seen with concern by the HNDGS because of the implications it may have on recruitment, and is forcing it to reconsider the future composition of the armed forces and other issues like the duration of military service.56 Area 4 Politicization of the Military (Non-Partisanship)57 It is a fact of life that the members of the armed forces hold their own views on political issues and feel attraction for or repulsion against the different legitimate options available in the political marketplace. Soldiers, after all, are citizens, in spite of 51  ALIVIZATOS, Nicos C., “Civilian Supremacy Over the Military. The Case of Modern Greece,” Military Law and Law of War Review, Vol. 30, Issues 1-4 (1991), p. 19. 52  SOTIROPOULOS, Dimitri A. and KARAMAGIOLI, Evika. Greek Civil Society: The Long Road to Maturity (2005). (Athens: Access 2 Democracy, 2006), p. 8. 53  DOKOS, Thanos P., “The Evolution of Civil-Military Relations and Progress in Greek Security Sector Reform,” in Security Sector Transformation in Southeastern Europe and the Middle East, ed. Thanos P. Dokos (Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2007), p. 45. 54  COLOUMBIS, Theodore and DOKOS, Thanos. “National Security” In Greece. A Country Study, edited by CURTIS, Glen E., 269-323. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1995. 55  BMI Research, Greece. Defense and Security Report. 2015 (London: BMI Research, 2015), 18. 56  Hellenic Republic Ministry of National Defense. White Book on Defense 2014. (Athens: Hellenic Army’s Printing Office, 2015), 135. 57  Unless otherwise indicated, we use in this paper the term “politicization” not in the sense of the military having the necessary political acumen to interact with the civilians in the civil-military nexus, where the limits of the political and of the military are blurred, but rather as synonymous to “political partisanship.”


REVISTA IEEE 9
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