Deterrence is no longer only about military inventories. It is about whether a country can sustain production, adaptation, and operational readiness under prolonged strategic pressure.
At last week's Athens Defence Summit, Nikolaos Papatsas, Board Member of EFA Group and Vice-Chairman of Hellenic Aerospace Security & Defense Industries Group (HASDIG - ΕΕΛΕΑΑ), brought that argument to two of the summit's most consequential sessions.
In Panel IV on industrial capacity, his position was grounded and direct: the biggest obstacle to scaling defense production is not money or technology, it is predictability. Industry cannot invest in advanced manufacturing, hire specialised talent, or build supply chain depth on short political cycles and fragmented procurement decisions. Governments think in annual budgets; industrial investment requires visibility over five, ten, or fifteen years.
In the Closing Plenary on Greece as a defense actor, the argument shifted from the European level to the national one. Greece has the geography, the engineering talent, and the alliances. What it needs is a coherent industrial strategy that turns defence spending into domestic capability, exports, and long-term technological depth. The goal is not to replicate the full spectrum of defense industry, but to build genuine competitive advantage in areas where Greece can realistically lead: aerospace integration, unmanned systems, naval technologies, cybersecurity, and advanced electronics.
The opportunity is clear. The decisions made in the next few years will determine whether Greece remains primarily a procurement market or emerges as an industrial actor with real strategic relevance in the European security architecture.
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