Israel and Greece unveiled their “Achilles Shield” defense deal Monday as Tel Aviv’s relations with Turkey are sharply deteriorating, raising questions over whether the multibillion-dollar agreement is part of a broader effort to counter Ankara’s growing regional clout.
In announcing the largest defense deal ever struck between Israel and Greece – a historic military rival to Turkey — Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz did not name a specific adversary. But he echoed other recent Israeli criticism of Turkey in warning of “actors with hegemonic ambitions seeking to expand their influence and destabilize the region,” saying Israel and Greece would work together to safeguard their security and shared interests.
Katz spoke after signing the Achilles Shield deal, valued at more than 10 billion shekels, or about $3.3 billion. Under the agreement, Israel will build a multilayered Greek air-defense network designed to counter aircraft, ballistic missiles and drones.
The package includes two air-defense systems from Rafael, David’s Sling and Spyder, as well as Israel Aerospace Industries’ Barak MX system. Other multifunction radars and a new national command-and-control system are also part of the deal. The two countries also signed a separate €26 million agreement for Rafael’s Drone Dome system for countering unmanned aircraft systems.
The agreement goes well beyond the sale of interceptor systems. It calls for the construction of an integrated defense architecture, along with technology and knowledge transfers and measures to strengthen Greece’s domestic defense industry — creating a long-term security relationship between the two countries rather than a one-off commercial transaction.
While the deal sends an immediate political message, the operational capabilities are not expected to be ready for roughly three years.
Dr. Gallia Lindenstrauss, a researcher specializing in Turkish affairs at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, cautioned against drawing a direct connection between the agreement and the tensions that have gripped the region in recent weeks, particularly between Israel and Turkey.
“This is a complex deal that has been under discussion for a long time, and its completion is not connected to events of recent months,” Lindenstrauss told MBN. She said the agreement had received preliminary approval around July and should not be viewed as a rapid military response to any particular development.
The systems involved are defensive, she added, and their delivery will take years. For that reason, she said, “it would not be accurate to link the deal to an immediate event in the region.”
Still, distinguishing between the deal’s immediate context and its broader strategic trajectory does not remove Turkey from the equation. According to Lindenstrauss, the agreement reflects longer-term shifts in the Eastern Mediterranean, most notably the deepening relationship among Israel, Greece and Cyprus alongside widening disagreements between those countries and Ankara.
In that sense, Achilles Shield is the product of years of political and security developments that have made Turkey an increasingly important factor in Israeli-Greek strategic calculations.
Turkey’s Growing Regional Role
The timing of the signing has reinforced an interpretation that stresses recent regional tensions. Israel’s public broadcaster reported that the Israeli Navy has for months been monitoring intensive Turkish military exercises and an expanded naval presence in the Mediterranean. Those developments, it said, have prompted preparations for the possibility that political strains could eventually spill into military confrontation, though there is no indication that any such clash is imminent.
Israel is also closely monitoring Turkish activity in Syria. Earlier this month Israeli airstrikes targeted the Abu al-Duhur air base after receiving information that Ankara was preparing to deploy troops and a radar system there — a prospect Israel believed could restrict the Israeli Air Force’s freedom of operation and alter the regional balance of power.
At the same time, Israeli security officials have stressed that Israel does not want to turn Turkey into an enemy state. Though the countries have withdrawn their respective ambassadors, covert channels of communication between the two sides remain open, they say, allowing them to exchange messages and reduce the risk of an unintended military confrontation.
A Changing Defense Landscape
The Israel-Greece deal is being struck as defense alignments are being reshaped across the region. On Aug. 7, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed the “Mecca Mutual Defense Agreement,” under which an armed attack on any one of the three countries would be considered an attack on all of them. The full details of their practical commitments and the mechanisms governing any intervention, however, have not been made public.
That does not necessarily mean the region is divided into two opposing blocs, nor that the two agreements are directly aimed at one another. But they point to an accelerating push to build new security networks based on mutual defense, technology, military exercises and increasingly integrated defense industries.
For Greece, Turkey remains a historic military rival because of longstanding disputes over the Aegean Sea, Cyprus and maritime boundaries. For Israel, the relationship with Ankara is more complicated. Over the past several decades, the two countries have moved between close security and economic cooperation and periods of deep estrangement. Relations have now reached an unprecedented level of tension over Gaza, Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean. Some political observers have said the friction is also driven by the personalities and domestic political calculations of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, both of whom have sought to bolster their standing at home.
Ankara may view Achilles Shield as part of a broader strengthening of Greece’s military capabilities and an extension of the trilateral partnership among Israel, Greece and Cyprus. Yet the defensive nature of the systems involved, coupled with the years-long implementation period, allows Israel to argue that it is not constructing an offensive alliance directed against Turkey.
Ultimately, the deal will not transform the balance of power in the Mediterranean overnight, nor will it give Athens a fully operational Israeli-built defensive umbrella within weeks. But it lays the foundations for a strategic architecture that could endure for decades, tying Greece’s air defenses increasingly closely to Israeli technology and expertise.
Adapted and translated from the original Arabic.
