Peace is not deterrence: “You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war”

“You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war.”

The phrase is attributed to Winston Churchill and encapsulates his criticism of the Munich Agreement of 1938.

The historical circumstances are, of course, entirely different. Turkey is not Nazi Germany, and the Athens Declaration is not the Munich Agreement.

The analogy, however, lies elsewhere.

It lies in the dangerous confusion between the absence of conflict and the existence of deterrence.

Peace is not, in itself, a strategy.

And, of course, the question is not whether we want peace. Obviously, we do.

The real questions are:

◾Peace at what cost?

◾With what strategy?

◾With what strength?

◾And with what national strategic outcome?

What, ultimately, is our national strategic doctrine?

◾Deterrence?

◾The building of national power?

◾The management of tensions?

◾Or simply the preservation of calm?

And, above all:

To what extent is the strategy we have chosen actually achieving its objective?

I hear the argument that the Athens Declaration was a tactical move. That it bought us time to strengthen our Armed Forces, our alliances and our geopolitical position.

If that was indeed the strategy, then we have an obligation to measure its results.

Greece has promoted energy and digital interconnections, the Vertical Energy Corridor, IMEC, GREGY, the Great Sea Interconnector, and a broader network of partnerships across the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans.

But let us be precise.

◾A signed memorandum is not infrastructure.

◾A planned interconnection is not an energy corridor.

◾A political commitment is not mutual interdependence.

◾An announced investment plan is not strategic depth.

And a plan is not power until it becomes reality.

◾Plans can change.

◾Agreements can change.

◾Governments can change.

◾Interests can change.

◾Strategic power begins where a change of position carries a cost.

That is precisely where I want to focus.

I cannot simply dismiss the concerns being raised on the grounds that they “have no basis” or that they are merely products of partisan politics when they concern our national interests.

Nor do I consider the comparison between two prime ministerial terms a serious answer.

◾Different circumstances.

◾A different international environment.

◾A different geopolitical moment.

◾Different challenges.

The issue is much greater than that:

◾What national strategic outcome did we seek?

◾Did we achieve it?

And when senior government officials themselves express differing views about national strategy, we cannot simply dismiss those differences as “internal party disputes.”

Disagreement over strategy is not subversion.

It is a democratic requirement.

And when national interests are at stake, criticism is not a luxury.

◾It is a necessity.

◾It is not enough that war did not break out.

◾It is not enough that channels of communication remain open.

◾It is not enough that we sign declarations and memoranda.

◾It is not enough that we announce interconnections and investment projects.

All these things have value only when they are transformed into real, measurable and difficult-to-reverse power.

Who ever said that deterrence is proven simply because the adversary does not attack?

Deterrence is proven when the adversary does not dare to create a fait accompli.

When the adversary knows that the cost will be greater than the benefit.

That is the real lesson of Churchill.

We must not purchase peace through the illusion that concession is deterrence.

Yes, peace is the goal.

But deterrence is the mechanism that protects it.

And power is the condition that allows deterrence to work.

Because, at the end of the day, national strategy is not judged by how elegantly we describe our plans.

It is judged by whether, when a crisis comes, the other side has greater reason to fear the cost of its aggressive choice than we have to fear the cost of our response.

That is where deterrence lies.

And that is where, once we set the narratives aside and measure the outcome, we must ask ourselves whether we have actually succeeded.