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I respectfully disagree. 50% of the impetus to "save Greece" has a lot to do with not letting Greece fall into Putin's sphere of influence and potentially losin

I respectfully disagree. 50% of the impetus to "save Greece" has a lot to do with not letting Greece fall into Putin's sphere of influence and potentially losing a strategic NATO ally. Tsipras has visited the Russian embassy many times and has flown to Moscow a couple times as well. These weren't social calls and the agenda was kept secret for a reason. Greeks admire Marxism and the old USSR and probably wouldn't mind moving into a Russian sphere of influence, either, especially if Russian taxpayers foot the bill for their unaffordable social programs. EU negotiators are dealing with a lot more than just pensions and lack of tax collection here. They're dealing with a potential Russian base, missiles, AA, subs, warships, etc permanently on their border and aimed at their capitals and civillian centers. The Ukrainians are a good example of what happens when the Russian military is your neighbor. Allowing Russia to trivially attack their borders and put up a Mediterranean blockade is unacceptable to the EU/NATO, but Tsipras is probably crazy enough to make this happen unless he gets the terms he demands. That said, the firing of Yanis Varoufakis probably means Tsipras is serious about cutting down the stupid Greek extremism that has made these talks impossible and probably wants to stay in the EU/Eurozone/NATO and will play ball on some level. I guess we will see.

elorant 11y ago
Exiting the Eurozone, which is what Grexit is all about, doesn’t mean we’ll exit the European Union too. We have no reason to do this and no one in Europe has ever made a hint about it. And then even that wouldn’t be enough for Russians to get a base here. We’d also have to exit the NATO alliance which we’ll never do because it ensures that Turkey can’t attack us since they’re a member too. And on top of that we’d also have to ask US to leave the naval base they have in Crete. All in all, we’d have to alienate pretty much everyone in the western world to allow Russians to get a foothold here. And besides, what’s the point? We don’t trust Putin and he certainly doesn’t have the money to bail us out.

elorant 11y ago

Exiting the Eurozone, which is what Grexit is all about, doesn’t mean we’ll exit the European Union too. We have no reason to do this and no one in Europe has ever made a hint about it. And then even that wouldn’t be enough for Russians to get a base here. We’d also have to exit the NATO alliance which we’ll never do because it ensures that Turkey can’t attack us since they’re a member too. And on top of that we’d also have to ask US to leave the naval base they have in Crete. All in all, we’d have to alienate pretty much everyone in the western world to allow Russians to get a foothold here. And besides, what’s the point? We don’t trust Putin and he certainly doesn’t have the money to bail us out.