A MAGICAL LAND
February, 2012

This fantastic photograph of Dia Island, taken from the shores of Kokkini Hani in the midst of last month’s turbulent weather, was submitted by Julie Davies-Kapsetakis, and posted on her Facebook page, and is so unique we think it should be shared with all the readers of The Khronicles Online.

EIGHT STRATEGIC FACTORS
TO CONSIDER IN 2012
(January, 2012)

Analysis by, Editor, and , Senior Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs




Rarely in the past six decades has global context counted for as much in strategic forecasting — trend analysis — as it does at the dawn of 2012.  Reliance on stove-piped analysis of “strategic sectors” — such as economic and financial issues, security issues, politics, geopolitics, resources and energy, sociology and religion, and so on — will produce skewed and unreliable estimates, and will tend to favour linear extrapolations of recent experience. A study of broad contextual factors, including an expanded view of history, will show how cycles and confluences of trends potentially play a greater disruptive role than at any time since the end of World War II.

We have, in recent writings, stressed the longer-term trends and outlook, but it is important to see how the strategic environment is likely to play out during 2012. Equally, it is important that these trends (and others) are seen collectively, and not separately.

1. Global Economic and Financial Trends: Economic fragility is everywhere, even in fairly robust and growing economies. Some of the new engines of economic and financial growth — Brazil, India, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) — face significant hurdles in 2012. Indeed, it is likely that we may see economic growth couple with instability, and with an inability of even substantial growth to meet social (and therefore political) expectations. Absent major surprises, watch for India to fall still further behind the PRC in terms of economic, and therefore strategic, competitiveness. But the delicacy of the global situation, as well as the PRC’s leadership transition in 2012, means that the PRC is unlikely, during this year, to see its yuan (renminbi) transform into a major global currency. Three of the major global economic lynchpins — the United States of America, the European Union, and Japan — remain in economic and financial difficulties, and this will constrain their strategic capabilities significantly. The rising debt-to-GDP ratio in both the US and the EU will hollow economic recovery efforts. This situation also means that the US dollar and the euro will retain their status as global trading currencies only by default, and will help reinforce a continuation of a fundamentally inflationary situation in the global marketplace. National statistics, which are biased politically, will continue to obscure real, underlying inflation, and this will continue to be pervasive and exported from the US and eurozone.

2. Global Energy Supply and Demand: 2012 will see the start of a transformation in fossil fuel supply and demand patterns, driven to an increasing extent by technological capabilities (such as the increasing possibility of delivering fuels derived from shale deposits in Europe, North America, and elsewhere). Changing strategic power reach (such as the decline in US influence in the Middle East, Central Asia, and, increasingly, Africa; and the rise in the PRC’s and India’s acquisitiveness) will also change control and logistical patterns for oil and gas distribution. The US has the ability to move much of its fossil fuel dependence away from the Middle East and Africa through transforming political approaches to the exploitation of domestic oil and gas fields and through cooperation with Canada in the exploitation of Alberta’s shale deposits, but is unlikely to make headway in this arena in the short term, due to political inertia. Based on present evidence, the US energy dependence pattern will remain slow to change in 2012, and significant change is only likely to occur with a change in US political leadership, which could occur at the beginning of 2013. As a result, the US will continue to face high costs, and high security vulnerability, because of its ongoing dependence on the maritime delivery of its oil and gas imports. This dependence comes at a time of declining US ability to project power to protect or — through strategic influence — ensure security of supply from, say, the Gulf of Guinea or the Middle East. Declining US strategic reach has already ensured the loss of control over, for example, Central Asian/Caspian oil and gas supplies.

Part of the changing fossil fuel logistical framework which will affect the strategic balance — apart from the exploitation of shale deposits in Europe, North America, and elsewhere — will be the clarity which will begin to emerge during 2012 in the future importance of oil and gas fields being developed in the Eastern Mediterranean. This will be a major driver in determining the economic creditworthiness (and therefore eurozone reliability) of the South-Eastern European countries such as Cyprus and Greece and, potentially, Italy. This will be a significant factor in the strategic behavior of Turkey, which is now seen as being outside the European Union bloc, and which is struggling to retain a major role in the energy marketplace. It lacks control over viable energy fields, and its influence over Central Asian/Caspian energy transportation to European markets (or even to the Mediterranean trans-shipment market) is, in relative terms, declining. Turkish economic fragility is, as a result, beginning to show, and this has generated an “equal and opposite” rise in Turkish strategic adventurism, designed to ensure a re-growth of neo-Ottoman influence over the Levant (particularly Syria and parts of the Palestinian Authority) and even Egypt. This adventurism seems likely to come to a head in 2012, even though the current Turkish Islamist political leadership is unsure how to effectively realize its adventurism given its concern over the reliability and loyalty of the Turkish Armed Forces to support an approach which goes so strongly against the secularist Kemalism of the Armed Forces.

The growing uncertainty of hydrocarbon supplies from the Persian Gulf, North Africa, and the Gulf of Guinea has sent the EU into an even greater reliance on Russia-origin and Russia-dominated for its energy supplies. What started as an economic driven default option will keep evolving in 2012 into a grand-strategic transformation. Brussels’ ambivalence about continued reliance on the NATO-based Euro-Atlanticism versus shift to the Mackinderian “Common Eurasian Home” doctrine advocated by Berlin and Moscow will be decided in favor of the latter, primarily on energy supply grounds and irrespective of the brewing political instability in Russia. Cognizant, the Kremlin will increasingly trade artificial lowering of energy price for Europe’s political-strategic pliability. This realignment will have major impact on the EU’s policy in key issues outside the immediate bilateral relations such as interventionism in third-party conflicts on the European periphery.

The strategic impact during 2012 of new energy-related technologies, apart from shale cracking, which will be worth watching are those related to energy transmission and storage. On the one hand, fixed, terrestrial electricity grids will become more efficient through interactive energy management computing, but at the same time they will become strategically more vulnerable, as noted repeatedly by this writer. On the other hand, 2012 will see a growth in the development to strategic scale (a significant change) of viable storage devices — batteries — which can act as stand-alone support for increasingly efficient local communications and computing networks, and be sustained by the newly-strategic-scale solar power technologies. It is the growth of these self-sustaining local networks which will serve as the guarantor of stability in the event of widespread interference with conventional terrestrial grids by natural disasters or human-sponsored disruptions.

3. Strategic Recovery by the US. The US will not, in 2012, show signs of any recovery of its global strategic credibility or real strength. Its manufacturing and science and technology sectors will continue to suffer from low (even declining) productivity and difficulty (for political reasons, primarily) in capital formation. A significant US recovery is not feasible in the timeframe given the present political and economic policies and impasse evident. US allies will, as they did in 2011, increasingly look to their own needs while attempting to sustain their alliance relationship with the US to the extent feasible. Those outside the US alliance network, or peripheral to it, will increasingly disregard US political/diplomatic pressures, and will seek to accommodate the PRC or regional actors. The continued economic malaise of the US during 2012, even if disguised by modest nominal GDP growth, will make economic (and therefore strategic) recovery more difficult and ensure that it will take longer.

In any event, the fact that the US national debt exceeds the GDP hollows the dollar and thus makes meaningful recovery impossible. The attractiveness of a low dollar value in comparison to other currencies in making US manufacturing investment more feasible than in recent years is offset by declining US workforce productivity and political constraints which penalize investment in manufacturing, or even in achieving appealing conditions for capital formation. Banks are as afraid of such investment as are manufacturing investors themselves.

4. EU/Eurozone Prospects. The unwillingness of eurozone leaders Germany and France to decouple economic and financial issues within the currency zone will continue to extract a growing cost on the Continental European economies. This, potentially coupled with a plateauing of demand from the PRC and India (among others) for German manufactured goods, could bring the eurozone to a period of stagnation. The option of a break-up of the eurozone, and the reversion to national currencies by some euro states (such as Greece, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Portugal [the PIIGS states], etc.) may be dampened by the fact that such a move may not address the underlying fiscal structures. But tempers are fraying within the EU, and moves toward the creation of Europe as a nation-state have slowed commensurately. Indeed, the desire for EU unity seems mainly driven by German and French fears of a return to 19th and 20th century nationalism and its potential to generate military competitiveness on the Continent. Claims that this fear is no longer a factor in German and French desires to sustain the eurozone miss the visceral underpinning of Franco-German policy in this regard. In the meantime, EU strategic projection has also come, in relative terms, to a standstill, and those EU and other European states active in the Coalition war in Afghanistan are anxious to withdraw from that engagement and to reduce military costs as rapidly as possible. All that this will do will be to further reduce the EU’s diplomatic influence on Turkey, the Middle East, Africa, and on global issues.

5. Iran-US-Israeli Military Engagement. 2011 drew to a close with Iran, the US, and Israel posturing themselves confrontationally over the question of Iran’s pursuit of an indigenous nuclear weapons production capability. All parties to the disagreement have postured themselves badly, through diplomatic bluster, and find the search for face-saving difficult. Equally, there is a distinct lack of understanding of each of the players by each other. The reality, however, is that military solutions to the crisis are not feasible given the lack of sufficient military and economic resources available to any of the parties, including the US. By withdrawing unconditionally from Iraq and turning against Bahrain at the height of the Iran-sponsored turmoil, the US effectively demonstrated to friends and foes alike that, rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding, that Washington was no longer committed to the Greater Middle East as a zone of vital interests.

This may mean that any “military confrontation” between any of the players would — ideally for all parties — be limited to a short, sharp jab or series of jabs, without getting into major strikes against significant land targets. Symbolism in engagement would be the order of the day, allowing honor to be satisfied on all sides. Indeed, a US naval confrontation with an Iranian naval element in or near the Straits of Hormuz might even obviate any need for an Iranian-Israeli spat. Iran has been careful to ensure that any provocation of Israel in direct terms up to this point has been via HizbAllah elements in Lebanon, and even this option is less secure for Iran in the opening months of 2012 given the instability of Iran’s major conduit to HizbAllah, Syria.
Any engagement of forces between any of these players is high-risk, however, given the prospect of a misstep, or over-reach, by a politician for whatever reason.

The matter is further dampened by the knowledge in US policy circles — tangentially confirmed by the US Director of National Intelligence (DNI) at the beginning of 2011 — that Iran already had a number of nuclear weapons acquired since about 1991 from a number of international sources. Given that the US and Israel have “pledged” never to allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, any open acknowledgement of the reality of Iranian nuclear weapons possession either invites the US or Israeli governments to take decisive military action against Iran, or look foolish. The answer has been — as it was with the US denial of North Korean nuclear weapons possession for so many years — to pretend the evidence does not exist, but to act cautiously nonetheless.

6. The Arab “Spring Break”. Concerns over the positive or negative prospects for “democracy” in the Middle East as a result of the rash of examples of popular unrest (Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria) should be seen in the light of the removal of a firm superpower authority figure in the region following the collapse of the Cold War and subsequent decline of the US. They should also be seen in light of the reality of the maturing and stagnation of some of the political systems which did not have the flexibility and legitimacy of traditional systems. The very peaceful and stable transformation of Morocco in 2011 — with a new Constitution and subsequent parliamentary elections — showed the value of a respected, historical leadership and governance process which was inherently rooted in local values. But how the governance systems evolve in Egypt and Syria, in particular, and also elsewhere in the region, is of strategic importance, but the process is natural and inevitable, and the US and Europe have demonstrated in the past few years that they are unwilling and incapable to influence events.

The PRC and Russia lack the capability to enforce any outcomes in the region, and Iran has an influence by virtue of being such an overwhelming presence in the Persian Gulf. Indeed, what happens in Syria is also of profound concern for Iran and its rise or fall as a major regional power. This, and some of the other disputes, highlights the competition which runs parallel to the cooperation between Iran and Turkey.

Not unrelated to this is the tenuous nature of the attempt by the Turkish political leadership’s bid to rebuild the neo-Ottoman status of Turkey in the Levant and Eastern Mediterranean, the Greater Black Sea Basin and Balkans, and Eastward into the Caspian Basin and Central Asia. Turkey has also strongly promoted itself as a patron of the Arab states, on the Arabian Peninsula, as well as of Egypt. But memories of the Ottoman domination of the region are not merely re-deposited in Turkish minds; they are also, with negative connotations, embedded in the minds of their former subject peoples. So Turkey’s bid for major regional power status seems likely to come to a head in 2012, possibly through forced attempts to change the leadership of Syria on Turkey’s terms, or through confrontations with Israel and Cyprus (and possibly Greece) over Eastern Mediterranean energy deposits and maritime boundary claims.

The beginning of 2012 finds Iran desperately fighting the formation of a Sunni Turkish-Saudi Arabian bloc which, if successful, would reverse and contain the historic ascent of Shi’ite Iran and its consolidation of hold over Iraq, Lebanon and parts of Syria; that is, consolidating a Shi’ite land-bridge to the shores of the Mediterranean. In recent months, as the tectonic shifts in the Greater Middle East were becoming more pronounced, Tehran has repeatedly used the specter of US-Iranian rapprochement and Iranian tacit facilitation of the safe withdrawal of US troops from neighboring Iraq, the Persian Gulf, and Afghanistan as inducement for the US to not side with the Sunni bloc led by Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Because of these higher priorities, Tehran elected to lick its wounds and refrained from escalating the Shi’ite insurrection in Bahrain even though Tehran definitely has the capacity to do so at will.

In 2012, Tehran will remain confounded by the contradictory US policy toward Iran and the Middle East. On the one hand, the Obama White House continues to project great interest in rapprochement with Tehran over Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Persian Gulf, as well as willingness to compromise over Iranian influence in post-Mubarak Egypt and post-Qadhafi Libya. The Obama White House is also the primary supporter of tiny Qatar’s ascent as a regional interventionist Islamist power which seeks to enshrine regional stability by assisting the formation of jihadist types of government with which Iran can co-exist, first in Libya and now in Syria. On the other hand, the Obama White House remains committed to the political ascent of the Muslim Brothers (Ikhwan al-Muslimin) and the Turkish Islamists who are anti-Shi’ite. Moreover, the US supports the Syrian opposition and urges Turkey to topple the Assad Government in the name of demography-based-democracy: that is, the ascent of a Sunni-Islamist government in Damascus.
  
Hence, while it seems to be too late to reverse the US encouragement of, and commitment to, the Turkish-Saudi Sunni bloc, the zealous unleashing of an all-out “anti-Iranian” campaign in this context is filled with great danger. Any military attack on Iran would result in a region-wide conflagration which would include Israel. This would play into the Mahdivists’ hands. Irrespective of the extent of the Arab military defeat, the real winners would be the Islamists-jihadists who would rise to power in the name of redeeming Arab-Islamic honor from the failed and now defeated Arab nationalism and statehood. The US penchant to encourage and exploit the ascent of Sunni-Islamist blocs in the Middle East (Turkey-Saudi Arabia-Egypt) and South Asia (Pakistan-Afghanistan) in order to stifle Iran might pressure Tehran but would also result in the radicalization of Central Asia and the soft underbelly of Russia to the detriment of vital Western interests such as what remains of its access to the region’s energy resources.

7. A Return to Chaos in Nigeria. What happens in Nigeria affects the global energy market, and the strategic stability of the EU and the US, and other states. By the beginning of 2012, Nigeria was falling rapidly toward civil war, or at least uncontrollable insurgency, and there seems little which Nigeria’s major trading partners can do to prevent the slide. Indeed, for the first time since the Nigerian Civil War of 1967-70, Nigeria is facing the prospect of a polarizing north-south schism. The experience of the Civil War is imprinted on the minds of older Nigerians, and so, too, is the basic framework to avoid a repetition of that war. But Pres. Goodluck Jonathan — who came to office from the “South-South”, the oil-producing Niger Delta region, with the promise of an ability to heal north-south divisions — has exacerbated the security situation in Nigeria by promoting a political culture bedevilled by two principles: corruption and indecisiveness. Increasingly, there has been talk of the military removing Pres. Jonathan as a means to prevent a new civil war, but the former Army Chief of Staff and former National Security Advisor, Lt.-Gen. (rtd.) Aliyu Mohammed, has been a voice calling for constraint and legal solutions.

As the situation now stands in Nigeria, no Western power has the capacity to intervene militarily to stave off a further security decline in the country, but the US and other allies have been attempting to help train Nigerian security forces to do the job. This, in fact, is unlikely to work, but Nigerian security and military agencies could do the job under the right leadership, and — as US and European officials know — this is Gen. Mohammed. But Gen. Mohammed, a strict democrat, will not countenance an unconstitutional military intervention in government. Hence the only solution in Nigeria would be for Pres. Jonathan to be forced into making the decision he has constantly promised to make: to put Lt.-Gen. Mohammed into a super ministerial portfolio with authority to address the crisis.

Here we see the fate of the stability of the Gulf of Guinea — emerging as perhaps the most important fossil fuel export zone in the world after Russia and the Middle East — hinging on the inability of a single man, Goodluck Jonathan, to make a decision: a corrupt and inept politician in fear of an honest and capable figure.

8. Stability on the Korean Peninsula. All indicators point to the probability that the new leadership of the Democratic People’s Republic of (North) Korea (DPRK), under Kim Jong-Un, will pursue a cautious (albeit with strong propaganda) policy toward adventurism on the Korean Peninsula for much or all of 2012. The new DPRK Administration can be expected to make some significant image-building initiatives, such as missile launches, and possibly even a further demonstration of a nuclear weapon, to demonstrate deterrence to the US and the Republic of Korea (RoK) and to demonstrate that Kim Jong-Un and his military team are firmly in control. However, the major cause for concern would be if the political transition and economic factors triggered popular unrest in the country. But this is not anticipated.

There are many major issues which run beneath the surface, or in parallel, with these short-term trend issues. For example, PRC Pres. Hu Jintao will step down from the Presidency in 2012, and this will trigger a new era in Chinese politics. This transfer of power, like the US Presidential and Congressional elections later in 2012, will be of enormous long-term significance, but these changes are part of the evolving continuum. The watershed changes — such as transforming energy patterns, or the changes in the way most wars are likely to be fought over the coming decades — are, however, the ones which should figure strongly when analyzing global risks and opportunities.
It is worth bearing in mind that 2012 is not expected to be a year of “big wars”, largely because most societies in the world are at a point where they lack the basic resources to sustain such activities on an inter-state scale. This will not prevent “short, sharp wars”, or clashes between sovereign powers, and the danger always exists that these can escalate, regardless of the preparedness levels or economies of the parties. The potential for clashes between Turkey and Israel or Cyprus, or the potential for a clash between Iranian and US forces fall into this category. But, conversely, a greater likelihood exists that the depressed, or even desperate, economic and social conditions of some states will exacerbate domestic unrest to the point of civil war. Nigeria falls into this category, but so do many other states. Indeed, the domestic situation in Pakistan is itself delicate, but also (as with Nigeria) potentially ripe for stabilizing actions by the domestic players.
The strategic consequences of an implosion in such states as Nigeria or Pakistan are profound, and, as noted earlier in this report, the “major powers”, such as they are at the moment, cannot think of intervening in their conventional heavy fashion if they hope to stabilize the situations.
This is a year which will call for greater skills than those required in the Cold War era, or even the post-Cold War age of wealth. It is a year of Great Power Impotence.

© 2012 Global Information System/International Strategic Studies Association; all rights reserved; used with permission. ISSA: www.strategicstudies.org

AN OLIVE ODYSSEY:
Retracing the Route of the Olive Tree
(December, 2011)

Olive Odyssey is a quest to expose the secrets of the world’s most influential fruit. First cultivated some 8,000 years ago in the Middle East, the olive tree quickly spread throughout the Mediterranean and became an important commodity for empires that would help shape the modern world. For millennia much of the world agreed with Homer in the Odyssey; olive oil was “liquid gold”.

Julie and Colin Angus are a young couple from British Columbia, Canada, who travel the world using human-powered means including cycling, kayaking, sailing, hiking, rowing and rafting. Currently, they are sailing from Spain through the Mediterranean to the Middle East as they track the story of the olive tree. The Khronicles Online caught up with the adventurous group when they came to Crete.

“We began in August and by December our team will have travelled over 3,500 km by small boat from Spain to the Middle East, retracing the trading routes of early seafaring merchants to explore the lands sculpted by the olive tree and uncover how the olive first came to those shores,” said Mr. Colin Angus, when he recently came ashore in Hania, accompanied by his wife Julie and baby son Leif. Their quest will finish in Syria where Julie’s parents have a traditional olive tree farm.

”It’s important that we get to visit the most notable locations tied to the history and cultivation of the olive before heading home in December and one such location is the island of Crete.”

In Hania they recorded the operation of the model biological oil factory “Biolea” in Kolympari witnessing the first pressing of this season’s olive oil and visited the historical olive trees, as well as other monuments and work areas which are related with the olive tree and its basic derivative, the olive oil. They also attended a conference on olive biotechnology where world olive experts shared their latest finds on the olives origins, tenacity and more.

  
This National Geographic sponsored expedition will be the subject of a book and documentary.

A READER WRITES…

Dear Editor:

I live in Milatos, Lassithiou, and have worked the full summer in Sissi. I love this country and have made it my home and want to share my views with you.

My views are very simple on this whole fiasco called “The Crisis”. We are all to blame. The tourists come here expecting Greece as it was in the past with low prices and friendly faces. They remember a nation with quaint customs, eager to take any remuneration for their goods and services. Well I am sorry to disappoint you people but the world has changed. As the cost of living has gone up, so also have the wage bills. Wages are low in Greece and costs are high. All summer I have heard tourists complaining about the “Five Star Hotels” not being up to par. They have moaned about the lack of bars and tavernas to choose from. When I have pointed out that there is a good selection if they just walk down towards the harbour area. They reply – “Oh no, we are all-inclusive and we have all our food and drink in the hotel – it seems a pity to waste it.” And there I have now hit it on the head.

TOURISTS

• Do not expect bars and restaurants (tavernas) to be open next year with no income. No bottoms on seats – no income – no jobs.

• Stop complaining about the breakfasts. There is more on offer at the hotels than you probably eat at home. If you want a greasy fry up be willing to pay for it.

• Get out of your all-inclusive hotels and see the area, even if for only a few days. If you just want to stuff your faces and drink – stay at home, hire a sunbed, some videos and send for carry outs. Then you can visit the world without leaving the comfort of your home. (Think of the global pollution you will save by not flying.)

HOTELLIERS

• Think of the whole story before you offer your all–inclusive packages. Without the tourists you will not survive. Without the Villages and the local people backing you, you will not survive.

• Encourage the tourists to venture out and back up the local economy.

• Encourage your staff to smile – it costs absolutely nothing.

LOCAL BUSINESSES

• Friendliness costs nothing. A few seconds more pointing out local interests can make all the difference. You will have return customers and recommendations.

• Bite the bullet. I know it is hard but to get bottoms on seats you will have to drop prices. Some places this year charged more for a pint than what is charged in London. Get a grip – people once stung do not return.

• Do not try to rip the tourists off – they will not come back and a bad press is worse than no press at all.

One final comment from me is that I hope if we all stand together and try to weather this nightmare storm that Greece has been thrust into, we shall all come out of it wiser and more willing to adapt to the changing times. 

Violet Vallance
violetrosie2000@yahoo.co.uk

WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?

By Simon Nixon
simon.nixon@wsj.com
(October, 2011)

As the Greek turmoil swirls, some commonly held beliefs are worth debunking:

1. Greece is insolvent.

No, it isn't. As economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff have noted, sovereign defaults are typically about willingness to pay rather than ability to pay. Greece has plenty of assets and huge potential to cut spending, increase tax collection and improve productivity if it is willing to make sacrifices. Rather than insolvency, Greece's challenge is whether the changes required are politically possible.

2. It is in Greece's interest to default.

Hardly. The country is still running a large primary deficit, so even if it inflicted 50 percent "haircuts" on bondholders, it would still need to borrow money immediately or face huge spending cuts overnight to balance the books. Worse, the Greek banking system would collapse as its capital was wiped out and its funding dried up; under European Central Bank rules, Greek government bonds would no longer be eligible as collateral. Nor would it make life easier if Greece tried to leave the euro, since this would likely trigger an immediate run on its banks.

3. A Greek default wouldn't be a Lehman moment.

Even the German government now seems to accept it was too complacent in imagining the market was prepared for a Greek debt restructuring. Despite Angela Merkel's climb-down last week, contagion effects have spread across the euro zone, notably to Spain, where bond yields have risen sharply. Germany's mistake was to consider only first-order effects on bank capital, whereas it would be the second-order contagion effects on government and bank borrowing costs that would do the greatest damage. Lehman was a severe market shock, but a Greek default could trigger a global slump as credit dried up around the world.

4. You can't keep kicking the can.

Yes, you can. Time is a great healer. Even if a Greek default becomes unavoidable, there are good reasons to delay it: partly to encourage Portugal and Ireland to stick to their bailout programs, but more importantly to reassure investors so they keep buying other peripheral European government and bank debt. The euro zone needs to avoid any defaults until countries like Spain and Italy manage to grow their way out of the danger zone. Indeed, much as it may upset German taxpayers, the euro zone may have to continue kicking Greek debt down the road long after 2013.

5. It's all Greece's fault.

Not entirely. Now that the euro zone has accepted it has little option but to bail out Greece again, its objective should be to ensure the bailout works. Yet the euro zone is charging Greece a punitive lending rate—nearly double what the European Financial Stability Facility pays to borrow or what the International Monetary Fund is charging—making Greece's task far harder. This makes no sense. The only sensible way now for the euro zone to minimize moral hazard is to agree to closer political integration. Sooner or later, Europe's leaders will have to face up to this reality.

NEWLY RENOVATED PAN ASIA
TO OPEN ALL YEAR

(October, 2011)

The management of one of Crete's premier Asian restaurants for the past 25 years, the newly-renovated Chinese/Thai Pan Asia in Kokkini Hani, has announced that it will now be open all year.

"For quite some time our customers have asked us to remain open throughout the year, but family obligations had to take priority," explained owner/manager Froso Maltezaki. "Now that my children are grown, I can now devote the necessary time and energy required. And, of course, also a main factor is that our renowned chef, Sayan Sornchan, has agreed to remain here all year." 

Sayan, who presents a unique Chinese-Thai menu, goes to great lengths in preparing her authentic dishes, such as growing her own Thai Chili Peppers in a garden out behind the kitchen.

"Actually, Thai and Chinese cooking is very similar," she said. "It's just that Thai food is usually spicier and can be a bit hot, depending on individual taste. And, there are some different spices, too, like lemon grass and Galangal root, and, of course, the chilli peppers.  In other words, Chinese food has a soft taste and Thai has a strong taste, and has a French influence, too."

Sayan, who comes from northern Thailand, has worked in Chinese and Thai kitchens for almost half of her 51 years, and has been head chef at Pan Asia for the past 14 years.

"In Thailand there are many Chinese restaurants throughout the country," Sayan told us. "In fact, like some other countries, we have a large "Chinatown" area, too. So, all good Thai chefs are knowledgeable about the two cuisines."   Over her tenure as head chief, Sayan has created a unique menu for Pan Asia, one that features a wide array of Chinese and Thai specialties, which is what sets it apart from other Chinese restaurants in Crete.

But, Pan Asia has always been something special. When it first opened its doors in 1986 it was a bit of an anomaly . . .  except for a tourist place in Aghios Nikolaos, it was Crete's only Chinese restaurant.

"When we turned my father's café into a Chinese restaurant, locals thought we were crazy," Froso said. "But, at the time, we had a Chinese partner, who wanted to move his restaurant from the Hotel American (now the Royal) across from the base in Gournes and we thought we'd give it a try."

For Froso, only 19 at the time, it was a bit overwhelming at first, but she proved to be a good businesswoman and a fast learner. And, when her partner left about a year and a half later, she became solely responsible for the restaurant . . . and its future success.

"It was difficult at first, for many reasons," she recalled. "First, it was almost impossible to find authentic Chinese ingredients and we had to have them shipped to Crete. Now, we have shops, like Pili Ethnic Market in Iraklion, that specialize in importing Asian products.

"Then, we had hardly any Greek customers," she added. "It was mostly tourists, and, of course, the Americans from the base, who were very good customers. At the time, Greeks, especially Cretans, were reluctant to try different foods. Now, the overwhelming majority of our customers are Greek, almost 90 percent."

In explaining the decision to open all year, she said: "Each year we tried to do a little bit more, like opening for lunch on the weekends. This proved to work very well, and many new customers found out about us. As I said, we now felt the time was now right for a year-round operation, so last winter we totally renovated the restaurant to better provide for comfortable service for the entire year."

Editors note: see A Taste of the Orient recipe in the GOOD LIVING section

OBESITY FOR ALL:
CRETAN STYLE

It's a lovely afternoon at one of the beautiful beaches stretching from Iraklion to Aghios Nikolaos. Healthy fresh salt air, an invigorating dip in the sea…really perks up the old appetite. Oh, great…here comes a beach vendor. Wouldn't it be great to have a nice healthy snack like a tuna salad sandwich and a cold Coke Zero.

WRONG!

Apparently, the only snacks available on our beaches are big, greasy, fatty fried donuts doused with a heavy coating of sugar sold by unlicensed vendors, making these coronary-and-diabetes-producing lumps of dough illegal as well as unhealthy and fattening. And yet they return year after year, while Greece remains as one of the most obese countries in Europe, with reported cases of diabetes soaring out of control.

Isn't time for the authorities to get rid of these blights on the beach, and replace them with licensed and health-inspected vendors who could offer sanitary-wrapped sandwiches, cold drinks and other healthful snacks?

 
TO THE EDITORS OF THE KHRONICLES:

To me, it’s rather saddening to see that on Crete there is so little connection made between cultural things and the pleasurable aspects, such as sand, sea and sun.

For instance, what is sad, is seeing so many places empty in June, last year (2010), but if there are 2000 visitors and every single place is a restaurant or a rent rooms, then statistically it could never work.

A Greek friend who grew up in Germany, but whose dad returned to Analipsi, told me, no, sorry, but the Greek mentality does not allow sound business practice. I told him: why are there so many restaurants and rooms to rent, aren’t there other things, don’t people look at statistics first? He told me: no, in Greece they don’t think like that, there may be a village like Analipsi with empty places, nobody eating there, people stood out front trying to pull you into an empty restaurant but still the next man will say, NO, but my place will be better.

All in all, it seems if everything is going to be so pushy-touristic, like as I experienced, sadly, where beautiful premises along the sea front in Analipsi had no customers, and I would expect would have difficulty even paying the chef, where through this desperate situation it seems like people are forced to lose their dignity…like, as I sat there, with my daughter and grandson, speaking with a very nice man who either owned the place or worked there, he just upped and left us, as soon as he saw another potential customer walk along near the front, and he left us, middle of the conversation.

But if you approach people that way, all that happens is the next time that same person either walks around another way or on the other side of the street ignoring, pretending not to hear, friendly hellos and how are you stuff. Me, I just didn’t want to experience that again so never went back even though the guy was "friendly." Only a few tourists are loyal only a few, others will opt for the place with regular flights at cheaper rates, flights to Crete are relatively (Spain, etc.) expensive.

Another thing is that all over Europe now cuisine has been taken to a very high level but Greece remains behind in this too, because there are no professional training schemes for chefs on Crete,* I am a classically trained French kitchen chef, I’d even like to help, upgrade what the Greek kitchen can offer as some dishes are of course delicious, but the methods in a kitchen, have to be hygienically responsible. Last year I ate in a place in Analipsi where the people were just lovely but one day I just knew that what I’d eaten and should have left was not right; next day I was ill, with heavy stomach acid as the meat had been off. I knew that. I should not have eaten it but I did. When people go on holiday they want to eat fantastic food. 

I feel a lot for Crete and that’s why I’m saying this. I arrived in Crete in 1976, had a girlfriend from New York who was Cretan, and then I travelled to Asia, later on. After Crete I never returned to Britain.

What I think is that Crete needs to have more going on culturally. I say this as I know people can’t spend that long just going from hotel to beach to restaurant. It seems people aren’t truly adept in business. If they were they’d set up a simple laundrette, something like that, instead of yet another bar…things people can use. 

 Anyway, I’m thinking,

 I like your magazine, great stuff.

 Terry John C

*EDITOR'S NOTE: There is at least one fine catering school in Crete, which is producing some excellent chefs. Some continue to do good work, but many others seem to forget what they have learned and become more involved with cutting costs, taking short-cuts in the kitchen, and eventually become just another taverna cook, rather than continuing as a trained chef. Something happens. The same can be said about driving. Greeks must undergo excellent and comprehensive training, both in theory and actuality, in order to obtain a driver's license. Then, once behind the wheel of their own vehicle, they metamorphose into some of the worst drivers in Europe, ignoring all that they had learned…and continually leading the list of most accidents and road fatalities. 

IT'S IRONIC… 

Immigrants, who are flocking to our shores in the hopes of finding a better life, which, of course, includes having enough to eat, are holding a HUNGER strike. Why? They're not satisfied with being employed at mostly menial jobs in Crete. The protestors, mostly from North Africa, shouted anti-Greek slogans, while demanding legal residence status in Greece. Here's an idea…let's fix these ingrates a traditional Cretan meal TO GO and kick them back to where they came from.

A PHOTO HISTORY OF
THE OLD GOURNES BASE

From Gary McPherson

 The photo site for the base is www.papoumac.shutterfly.com. For those who may like to see the American base as it was from 1956 to 2011. The site is a photo history of the base and the people living and working there.

DEVELOPMENTAL OPPORTUNITIES
FOR THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT

The Example of the
Former American Base in Gournes

From Renia Drosou
MSc Sociologist - Regional Growth & Development

The unremitting objective for the continued upgrading of the people’s quality of life must be the vision for each modern mayor and municipal government. This vision is in many cases limited by the devastating economic situation and, consequently, the lack of resources. However, it is a vision, which is still anything but unfeasible, especially when the mayor and the municipal council wish to apply a totally developed growth policy. Today, they have various opportunities through many possibilities of co-financing, which are provided in the framework of several government funding programs offered by the ministry of interior.  

For example, with a developmental environmental approach, the possibility of participating and taking advantage of subsidised programs is available for systems which produce energy from renewable sources, for creating photovoltaic parks, for producing green electric energy from the sun, for taking advantage of geothermal fields, for lighting public buildings and streets from the sun, as well as creating wind mill parks. And let’s not forget the programs of recycling, obtaining supplies from energy efficient products, creating green areas, etc.

Each mayor, therefore, who envisions to carry out a well thought-out and detailed work for the invigoration of urban environment, especially when he has in his disposal an area like the former American Base in Gournes – if he can envision it -  also has the essential tools to shape a model municipality for the future. One developmental tool therefore is the "National Developmental Program" for local governments of the HELLAS program which has replaced the old THISEAS program of a similar nature. This program provides the possibility of special interventions via which an opportunity is given to each municipality to select the works and the necessary steps to be taken that will correspond with the local particularities and local individual needs.

Each municipality will receive the necessary credits for the duration of the Program. The program includes works and actions for the completion of basic municipal infrastructures, environmental interventions, as well as actions of a social care nature. Consequently, it can cover the financing of city-planning studies. One leg of such a program provides for the “improvement of infrastructures” which aims to complete such works as networks of water supply, sewerage and solid waste management, and also in the creation of work for infrastructures in agriculture, livestock-farming and fishery, in the development of tourist product as well as in the upgrade of public areas. For the most part, these proposed works are those which cannot be covered by ESPA, which is the main report in the planning of funds of the European Union on a national level for a specific period of time.

Based on the Kallikratis law, in order for a municipality to realise a special project the Demos should follow certain steps. The most basic step is to declare the will to do this particular project. This is declared in an existing program called “Annual Action Plan," which is prepared every year by the municipality.

In recapping, we begin with the vision, we determine the work, we include it in the “Annual Action plan”, and then we make it a reality.

In the case of the former American Base, the vision is that the former American Base in Gouves develops into a cultural - educational lung of national importance. What is required initially is to do a city planning study. In order to carry out this study it must be included in the “Annual Action plan ” of the Municipality and be approved by the economic committee, the committee for the quality of life, the executive committee and the municipal council. A natural order – by law – must be followed: according to article 72 of Kallikratis, the economic committee “…introduces to the municipal council an annual plan of management and improvement of the municipal property. It also follows up on its progress and continues to apprise the municipal council."

According to article 73 of Kallikratis, the committee for quality of life has the power to introduce to the municipal council all matters concerning land usage and matters regarding city planning studies, improvement of areas, funding to improve these areas, etc.

Urban planning can undertake the checking of this study. And because urban planning is now in the hands of the municipality, the process is greatly simplified.  If the Municipality still has not put together an urban planning department, then the municipality can appeal to the prefecture for administrative support which will be provided until December 31, 2012. After this date the municipality is obliged to have created this service. The financing of the city planning study can be completed with resources from the program HELLAS, while the financing of relative works on this project can be realised by the above mentioned funds, as well as the JESSICA fund, which is a European Program for the development of a region like the former American Base in Gournes.

Consequently, according to this analysis, the most important element for the development of the former American Base in Gournes is the will of the Mayor and the municipal council so that the needs of the local societies are met, the creation of essential infrastructures and respect towards public interest are realized and the needs in education, health, social providence, utilities and recreation of the wider metropolitan area are met.

As the old adage goes: If there is a will then there is a way...and, in the case of the base property, it's especially true if the many funding programs available are utilised.

Η ΠΟΙΗΤΙΚΗ ΓΩΝΙΑ

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