Abstract
This chapter presents the special connection between the USA and the region of the Eastern Mediterranean. It emphasizes on the First Barbary War, the Truman Doctrine, the Suez Crisis, the emergence of the Greek junta, and lastly the 1996 Imia crisis in the Aegean Sea. My main goal in this chapter is to underline the main methodological formulas of American foreign policy in the Eastern Mediterranean from the beginning of the nineteenth century up until the end of the twentieth century. By examining these episodes, the geostrategic transition of the region and the role the USA played in this protracted procedure will be shown.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
The port of Smyrna, known today as Izmir, was together with Piraeus and the port of Alexandria, the most important naval trade center in the Ottoman Empire. Smyrna was a predominantly Greek inhabited city with a rich history that begins in the seventh century BC. In 1919 the Greek Army entered the city under the provisions of the Versailles Treaty, while in 1922 the Turkish Army recaptured it, leading to the first genocide of the twentieth century, with thousands of Greeks seeking for shelter in the neighboring Greek state, while many lost their lives in the troubles that followed the entrance of Kemal Pasha’s Army in the city. During those troubles of 1922 the aid of the U.S. Navy to the Greek refugees was vital as American ships evacuated thousands of Greeks from the port of Smyrna, rescuing them from the Turkish Army and also from the blades of the Tchetas, the Muslim armed irregular brigands in the Asia Minor that followed Kemal’s Army during the advance from Anatolia to the Aegean coast.
- 2.
- 3.
In today’s dollars upward of $45 billion.
- 4.
The most well-known incident during that phase of the war was the grounding of the frigate Philadelphia and the capturing of 307 man-crew by Pasha Karamanli. He repaired the vessel in order to make use of it against the U.S. fleet; however on February 16, 1804, the American side organized a suicide mission under the command of Lt. Stephen Decatur. The team got into the port of Tripoli after dark and set the frigate on fire without any casualties except one slightly wounded sailorman. The loss of Philadelphia was a serious blow for the American side, yet the undercover operation of Decatur and his men gave the opportunity to the American public not to give so much importance to the reduction of the U.S. fleet (Tertius de Kay 2004: 9–20; Allison 2000: 28–31).
- 5.
In 1825, during the Greek War of Independence, prominent members of the Greek side under the leadership of Prince Alexandros Mavrokordatos and Georgios Kountouriotis asked with a letter to be placed under the British protection. In 1824 and in 1825 the Greek side secured two loan packages from London in order to finance the struggle, while after the liberation one of the main political parties in Greek politics was the so-called English Party that acted as the official British agent inside the Greek Parliament, having to oppose the actions of the Russian and French Party, respectively.
- 6.
In today’s money £5.6 billion.
- 7.
Very briefly regarding the state of the British economy, between 1939 and 1945 the state’s cumulative account deficit amounted to £10,000 million, and thus it received £5400 million in lend-lease supplies and mutual aid from the U.S. and Canada. In addition, the UK sold £1000 million of its most lucrative pre-war foreign investment, while by the end of 1945 one-quarter of the country’s pre-war wealth had been liquidated (Kirby 2006:82).
- 8.
In today’s money £2.3 to 2.68 billion.
- 9.
On October 30, 1918, the Ottoman Empire and the Entente Powers ended the hostilities of World War I. The signing of the Armistice took place onboard HMS Agamemnon in Mudros, the harbor of the Greek island of Lemnos. The significance of the Armistice was immense since the Ottoman Empire surrendered unconditionally to the victorious powers of the Great War, even granting them the right to control the strategic location of the Straits of the Dardanelles and of Bosporus (MacFie 2013: 173–181).
- 10.
The Soviet assistance to the Turkish war efforts against the Entente Powers was so critical that after the establishment of the Turkish Republic Kemal Pasha or Kemal Ataturk as he remained known in Turkish history gave specific directions to Pietro Canonica, the famous Italian sculptor that was creating a monument at Istanbul’s Taksim Square that was dedicated to the founders of the Turkish state, to curve among the figures of Kemal Ataturk and his brothers in arm, the figures of Semyon Ivanovich Aralov, the Soviet Ambassador in Ankara during the War of Independence; Mikhail Frunze, a hero of the October Revolution; and Marshal Kliment Voroshilov as a sign of appreciation for the vital assistance that the USSR offered to the Turkish guerillas.
- 11.
One of the first measures when Hitler rose to power was to transform the Balkans into Germany’s economic hinterland. Thus, by 1937 Germany supplied 78% of Turkish wool yarns and tissues, 69.7% of its iron and steel, 61% of its machinery and apparatus, and 55.4% of its chemicals, while Germany took 75% of Turkey’s new wool and 70% of its new cotton and chrome (Gökay 2006: 53).
- 12.
The Castle is Franz Kafka’s novel. It speaks about the nature of the tyrannical regimes and the dire consequences that this kind of autocratic ruling has in the minds and hearts of the people who are living under these horrific conditions.
- 13.
After Istanbul the USS Missouri sailed to Piraeus, Greece, where the Civil War had just begun, lifting up the spirits of the Royal and the Liberal sides.
- 14.
The American approach towards the Soviet policy to Turkey can be fully revealed in the telegram that the U.S. Ambassador in Moscow, Walter Bedell Smith, sent to the Secretary of State, James F. Byrnes, on January 8, 1947. Smith insisted that the Soviet threat towards Turkey was constant for the following reasons: “Soviet policy with respect is motivated not only … by considerations of security but also by urge to gain independent access to Mediterranean and Arab world and by determination to sever British Empire jugular at Suez. To the Kremlin, Turkey represents both a corridor for attack on USSR and an obstacle to achievement of Soviet objectives. USSR will therefore not feel that it has either achieved security for its southwestern frontier or made a solid advance on its course of Near Eastern aggression until it dominates Turkey” (FRUS 1971b).
- 15.
In today’s money $4,674,102,325.58.
- 16.
- 17.
In today’s money $12 billion.
- 18.
On February 25, 1955, Arabs murdered an Israeli civilian in the town of Rehovot, just 20 km south of Tel Aviv. Israeli forces pursued and killed some of the militants, discovering in one of them papers that were linking the whole incident with the Egyptian military intelligence. Israel decided for a harsh response and on February 28 Israeli paratroopers attacked an Egyptian military base near the city of Gaza. 38 Egyptians died, many more were wounded, while the Israeli side had eight losses. The Operations Black Arrow humiliated the Egyptian regime and led to the further deterioration of the Egyptian-Israeli relations.
- 19.
The Point IV Program was an American assistance for developing countries, aiming at the technological advancement of their agrarian or industrial production. The P4P was announced from President Harry S. Truman on January 20, 1949.
- 20.
Since the first moment that the Eisenhower’s administration decided to finance the construction of the High Aswan Dam, the Southern cotton states’ senators made clear that they were openly against this move since the construction would have increased the Egyptian production. On top of that, the Senate Appropriations Committee informed the White House that it was willing to prohibit funds from going to the Aswan Project (Kunz 1991: 68).
- 21.
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu (13 March–7 May 1954) was the decisive confrontation that led France to withdraw from Indochina and the U.S. to be heavily involved in a new long fight with Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnam War.
- 22.
Other researchers argue that the Egyptians installed one coastal artillery at Ras Nasrani (e.g., Herzog 1990:3).
- 23.
Athens, since the establishment of NATO in April 1949, wanted to be a part of the Western defense structure. For various reasons that mainly had to do with the American way of operating things, i.e., one step at a time, the Eastern Mediterranean was not included in the first wave of the state—members that were mainly from central and Western Europe. However, both Greece and Turkey were accepted during the second accession process in 1952 showing that the U.S. was particularly interested in strengthening the region that is geographically adjusted to the Black Sea and to the Soviet territory.
- 24.
In the general elections of 1958 EDA moved up to the second position of the Greek political scale by obtaining 939,902 votes (24% of the Greek electorate) under tremendous pressure from the deep Greek state.
- 25.
Georgios Papandreou is one of the most important political figures of the twentieth-century Greece and a prominent member of the long Greek liberal tradition. He served three times as the Prime Minister of Greece [1944–1945, 1963; 1964–1965], elected for the first time in Parliament in 1923, and he was the founder of the Center Union [Enosis Kentrou]. He died in 1968, during the first months of the Greek junta, and his funeral became the first major anti-junta rally in Athens.
- 26.
Interesting and utterly characteristic of the nonjudgmental American democratic culture, Washington appeared to be in favor of the reoperation of the Greek Communist Party as a legal political entity for the Greek political scene. In a State Department’s Operations Plan for Greece few days after the elections of 1958 it became obvious that Washington was in favor towards such a development that would have signaled the full normalization of the Greek political environment. According to the note: “U.S. officials should appraise carefully and move towards legalization of the KKE (Greek Communist Party). Following the banning of the KKE in 1947, the party’s leadership as well as many of its adherents went behind the Iron Curtain. Since 1949 there has been a gradual acceleration of propaganda designed to have the KKE made legal once more in a deliberate campaign of ‘forgetfulness’ and ‘normalcy’. Successive Greek governments have relaxed the laws dealing with communism in Greece, but no government has, to date, seriously contemplated legalization of the KKE. However, the success of the Communist-front EDA in the May, 1958, elections may raise the issue again” (FRUS 1993b).
- 27.
In 1955 the largest community of Cyprus, the Greek, commenced the Enosis struggle which was demanding from London to evacuate Cyprus and allow the island to be unified with Greece. For more regarding the Enosis struggle and the political implications over the Cyprus Question see Holland (1998) and (French (2015).
- 28.
There have been numerous coup d’états since the early days of the Greece, showing that the political and institutional foundations of the state were weak. More analytically: in 1831 Admiral Andreas Miaoulis revolted against the Greek Government and burnt the two Greek frigates, Elli and Hydra, while in the same year the first Governor of Greece, Ioannis Kapodistrias, was assassinated. On August 15, 1909, a military coup was staged against the government of Dimitrios Rallis. On September 11, 1922, a military coup against the Greek King Constantine I took place, following the collapse of the Minor Asia campaign of the Greek Army. On October 11, 1923, a failed military coup occurred from a team of pro-Royalist military officers. On June 25, 1925, a military coup brought General Theodoros Pangalos to power. On August 22, 1926, a coup led by General Kondylis overthrew Pangalos’ regime bringing him to power. On March 6, 1933, General Plastiras organized a coup that overthrew General Kondylis, while on March 1, 1935, General Plastiras and Eleftherios Venizelos organized a failed coup against the pro-Royalist government of Panagis Tsaldaris. On October 10, 1935, a coup d’état organized by General Kondylis led to the restoration of monarchy in Greece. On August 4, 1936, General Ioannis Metaxas established his fascist regime by suspending the Greek Parliament with the consent of King George II. On May 30, 1951, a group of right-wing military officers attempted with no success to overthrow the government of Sofoklis Venizelos. For more regarding all the above episodes of the modern Greek political life see Kalyvas (2015), Gallant (2001), and Kostis (2018).
- 29.
Anti-Americanism in Greece comes from both the left- and the right-wing sections of the ideological scale of the state. Even today someone can find an orthodox Marxist who traditionally promotes an anti-American stance as a source of nostalgia for the Cold War era, ultraright wingers who accuse Washington for the failure of their nationalist aspirations, or even politicians, journalists, or academics from the center-left or the center-right establishment who cover their almost metaphysical anti-Americanism behind a vague and at the same time hyperbolic Europhile position. However, the most profound and violent form of anti-Americanism comes from the left. Characteristically, every 17th November in Athens, the day that commemorates a student’s uprising against the junta back in 1973, a large parade containing Socialists, Communists, Leftists, and Anarchists reaches the American Embassy in order to protest against the alleged role of the U.S. in the establishment of the colonels’ tyranny in Greece. For more about anti-Americanism in Greece see Botsiou (2007: 277–306) and Staviridis (2007).
- 30.
The most characteristic, yet not the only ones, incidents of that period were the following: (1) the execution of Nikos Belogiannis and Nikos Ploumbidis, two leading figures of the Greek Communist Party, in 1952 and 1954, accused for treason and espionage against the Greek state; (2) the assassination of Gregoris Lambrakis, an MP that was elected in the Greek Parliament under the flag of the United Democratic Left, in 1963 by extreme-right-winger thugs; and (3) the killing of Sotiris Petroulas, a student and member of the youth movement of the United Democratic Left, in 1965 during clashes with the police in Athens.
- 31.
One of the most common accusations against Andreas Papandreou was that he did not return back to Greece to fight against the Italian and the German army back in 1940–1941 but he preferred instead to serve in the U.S. Army as a hospital corpsman at the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. However, it has to be said that this was not an option for Andreas Papandreou since he had been exiled from Metaxas’ fascist regime in 1939 due to his pro-Trotskyist ideas and if Papandreou would have had returned back in 1940 he would have been probably imprisoned together with the majority of the communist, Trotskyist, and anarchist Greeks.
- 32.
Besides the ultraconservative stance of the Greek Army, a political scandal within the Army ranks created an explosive sentiment of the Greek officers against Andreas Papandreou. In 1944, officers of the Free Greek Army that was fighting in the Middle East against the Nazis established IDEA [Sacred Bond of Greek Military Officers], a secret anti-communist organization that played an important role during the Greek Civil War. IDEA was loyal to the Palace and after the end of the civil strife fully controlled the Army. In 1965, the right-wing press accused Andreas Papandreou that he created a secret fraction inside the Army under the name ASPIDA [Officers Save the Nation, Ideals, Democracy, Meritocracy]—a rather smart abbreviation since in Greek the word Aspida means shield—in order to take control of the Armed Forces and use them as a battering ram against the Palace and the ultraright-wing political establishment. This infuriated the Army officers who approached the establishment of IDEA as another Papandreou’s plot to eventually govern Greece and introduce his radical ideas to the state.
- 33.
The foreigners.
- 34.
During the 1960/1961 trial of the Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and Foreign Minister Fatin Zorlu it became known that the explosion in the Turkish Consulate in Thessaloniki has been carried by Turkish agents under the orders of the Turkish Government (Zayas 2007: 138).
- 35.
Ankara, immediately after the signing of the Lausanne Treaty, began to develop a concrete revisionist stance that was targeting the legal status quo of the Aegean Sea, while it also managed to annex the Sanjak of Alexandretta, the today province of Hatay, from Syria under the consent of the French administration in 1939. Regarding the Alexandretta case see Pelt (2014: 35–37) and Bein (2017: 90–104).
- 36.
For the historical record it is important to quote at this point the words of the U.S. Ambassador Niles who was the head of the American diplomatic mission in Athens during the Imia crisis. His account of the events has a particular interest because it shows the validity of the Greek legal claims over Imia and therefore over the Aegean Sea: “We did not really have a clue of the legal background. We had never heard of Imia. We set our lawyers to work on the historical record. The Dodecanese islands had been Turkish from the early sixteenth century (recall that Rhodes was seized from the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem in 1527, thus the story of the ‘Maltese Falcon’) until 1911, when they were seized by the Italians, who kept in theory through 1947, when they were ceded to Greece under the Treaty of Paris. In January 1932, the Italians and the Turks concluded a treaty that delineated that area. The Turks accepted Italian sovereignty over the Dodecanese Islands, which they had never done before. In December of 1932, the Italians and the Turks signed a Protocol to the January 1932 Treaty in which the Turks agreed that a designated list of smaller islands, which included Imia, were also Italian. It was clear that what they had done was to follow the three-mile limit. Anything in the Dodecanese area that was outside three miles from the Turkish coast was recognized as Italian. Imia is four miles from the Turkish coast, and as I said, Imia was mentioned in the Protocol as belonging to Italy. The Turks claim that the Protocol was not registered with the League of Nations , as international agreements were supposed to be at that time, and was therefore invalid. Under the Wilsonian doctrine of treaties being freely negotiated and publicized, i.e. no secret treaties, there was the League of Nations requirement that treaties be registered with that body. Turkey and Italy registered the basic Treaty of January 1932. Our lawyers said that because the basic Treaty had been registered, the Protocol did not need to be registered in order to be regarded as valid. That was the Greek position. Moreover, as they pointed out, both Turkey and Italy treated the Protocol as valid up until the end of WWII” (Niles 1998: 305).
- 37.
Commander Christodoulos Karathanasis; Commander Papagiotis Vlachakos; Ensign Ektoras Gialopsos.
References
Acheson, D. (1987). Present at the creation: My years in the state department. New York: W.W. Norton & (re-issue edition).
Akalin, B. (2015). Ottoman American relations, Francis Hopkins Smith and Armenian issue. Journal of International Education and Leadership, 5(1), 1–28.
Alford, B. (1997). 1945–1951: Years of recovery or a stage in economic decline? In P. Clarke & C. Trebilcock (Eds.), Understanding decline: Perceptions and realities of British economic performance (pp. 186–211). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Allison, R. (2000). The crescent obscured: The United States and the Muslim World, 1775–1815. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Ambassador Thomas M. T. Niles. (1998). Interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy. The association for diplomatic studies and training – Foreign affairs oral history project. Arlington, VA. https://www.adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Niles,%20Thomas%20M.T.toc.pdf
Antonucci, J. A. (2010). Consuls and Consiglieri: United States relations with the Italian states, 1790–1815. In S. Marzagalli et al. (Eds.), Rough waters: American involvement with the mediterranean in the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries (pp. 77–100). Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Athanasopulos, H. (2001). Greece, Turkey and the Aegean Sea: A case study in international law. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Badr, H. (2000). The protestant evangelical community in the Middle East impact on cultural and societal development. International Review of Mission, 89(352), 60–69.
Bayar, M., & Kotelis, A. (2014). Democratic peace of hegemonic stability? The Imia/Kardak case. Turkish Studies, 15(2), 242–257.
Bein, A. (2017). Kemalist Turkey and the Middle East: International relations in the interwar period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Blair, A. (2015). Britain and the world since 1945. London: Routledge.
Blum, W. (2003). Killing Hope: U.S. military and CIA interventions since World War II. London: Zed Books.
Bostdorff, M. D. (2008). Proclaiming the Truman doctrine: The cold war call to arms. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press.
Botsiou, K. (2007). Anti-Americanism in Greece. In B. O’Connor (Ed.), Anti-Americanism: History, causes and themes (pp. 213–234, 336–341). Oxford: Greenwood Press.
Boughton, M. James (2001). Was Suez in 1956 the first financial crisis of the twenty-first century? Finance and Development, 38(3). https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2001/09/boughton.htm
Brown, D. (March 14, 2001). 1956: Suez and the end of empire. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/mar/14/past.education1
Chalmers, J. (2003). Plain truth: Addresses to the inhabitants of America, containing, remarks on a Late Pamphlet, entitled common sense. In M. Jensen (Ed.), Tracts of the American revolution, 1763–1776 (pp. 446–470). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing.
Chourchoulis, D., & Kourkouvelas, L. (2016). Greek perceptions of NATO during the Cold War. In E. Hatzivassiliou & D. Triantaphyllou (Eds.), NATO’s first enlargement: A reassessment (pp. 31–48). London: Routledge.
Christodoulakis, N. (2014). The conflict trap in the Greek Civil War, 1946–1949: An economic approach. Hellenic Observatory – European Institute GreeSe paper no. 83. London: London School of Economics and Political Science. http://www.lse.ac.uk/europeanInstitute/research/hellenicObservatory/CMS%20pdf/Publications/GreeSE/GreeSE-No-83.pdf
Clift, B., & Tomlinson, J. (2008). Negotiating credibility: Britain and the international monetary fund, 1956–1976. Contemporary European History, 17(4), 545–566.
Cooper, R. (2008). A weak sister? Macmillan, Suez and the British economy, July to November 1956. Contemporary British History, 22(3), 297–316.
Cos, K., & Bilgin, P. (2010). Stalin’s demand: Construction of the “Soviet other” in Turkish foreign policy, 1919–1945. Foreign Policy Analysis, 6(1), 43–60.
Daly, W. M. (1998). The Cambridge history of Egypt: Modern Egypt from 1517 to the end of the twentieth century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Delis, P. (2017). The British intervention in Greece: The battle of Athens, December 1944. Journal of Modern Greek Studies, 35(1), 211–237.
Draenos, S. (2012). Andreas Papandreou: The making of a Greek democrat and political Maverick. London: I.B. Tauris.
Edling, M. M. (2003). A revolution in favor of government: Origins of the U.S. Constitution and the making of the American State. New York: Oxford University Press.
Elbaum, B., & Lazonick, W. (1984). The decline of the British economy: An institutional perspective. The Journal of Economic History, 44(2), 567–583.
Enazy, H. A. (2017). The legal status of Tiran and Sanafir Island. Dirasat – King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, 22.
Erhan, C. (2004). Main trends in Ottoman – American relations. In M. Aydin & C. Erhan (Eds.), Turkish American relations: Past, present and future (pp. 3–25). London: Routledge.
Exertzoglou, H. (2003). The cultural uses of consumption: Negotiating class, gender and nation in the Ottoman Urban centers during the 19th century. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 35(1), 77–101.
French, D. (2015). Fighting EOKA: The British counter-insurgency campaign on Cyprus, 1955–1959. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
From Thomas Jefferson to Horatio Gates. (13 December 1784). Founders online. Jefferson papers. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-07-02-0411
From Thomas Jefferson to John Adams. (11 July 1786). Founders online. Jefferson papers. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-10-02-0058
Folly, H. M. (2000). Churchill, Whitehall and the Soviet Union, 1940–1945. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Foreign Relations of the United States [FRUS]. (1969). 1945, vol. VIII, The Near East & Africa. Washington: United States Government Printing Office (a) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945v08/d194; (b) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945v08/d207
Foreign Relations of the United States. (1971). 1947, vol. V, The Near East and Africa. Washington: United States Government Printing Office (a) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1947v05/d13; (b) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1947v05/d2
Foreign Relations of the United States. (1986a). 1952–1954, vol. IX, part. 1, The Near and Middle East. Washington: United States Government Printing Office (a) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v09p1/d4
Foreign Relations of the United States. (1986b). 1952–1954, vol. IX, part. 2, The Near and Middle East. Washington: United States Government Printing Office (a) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v09p2/d1122; (b) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v09p2/d1212
Foreign Relations of the United States. (1989a). 1955–1957, vol. XV, Arab – Israeli Dispute, January 1–July 26. Washington: United States Government Printing Office (a) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v15/d1; (b) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v15/d467; (c) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v15/d500
Foreign Relations of the United States. (1989b). 1955–1957. vol. XXIV, Soviet Union, Eastern Mediterranean. Washington: United States Government Printing Office (a) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v24/d184
Foreign Relations of the United States. (1990). 1955–1957, vol. XVI, Suez Crisis July 26 – December 31, 1956. Washington: United States Government Printing Office (a) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v16/d2; (b) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v16/d4; (c) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v16/d6; (d) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v16/d12; (e) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v16/d21; (f) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v16/d35; (g) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v16/d34; (h) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v16/d95; (i) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v16/d103; (j) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v16/d160; (k) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v16/d412; (l) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v16/d461; (m) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v16/d460
Foreign Relations of the United States. (1993). 1958–1960, vol. X, part. 2, Eastern Europe; Finland; Greece; Turkey. Washington: United States Government Printing Office (a) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v10p2/d240; (b) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v10p2/d241
Foreign Relations of the United States. (2000). 1964–1968, vol. XVI, Cyprus; Greece; Turkey. Washington: United States Government Printing Office (a) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v16/d200; (b) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v16/d273; (c) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v16/d276; (d) https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v16/d300
Fouskas, V. (2001). Reflections on the Cyprus issue and the Turkish invasions of 1974. Mediterranean Quarterly, 12(3), 98–127.
Gallant, W. T. (2001). Modern Greece: From the war of independence to the present. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Gardner, C. L. (2009). Three Kings: The rise of an American Empire in the Middle East after World War II. New York: The New Press.
Gökay, B. (2006). Soviet Eastern policy and Turkey, 1920–1991: Soviet Foreign policy, Turkey and communism. London: Routledge.
Gross, T. N. (1995). The economic regime during Israel’s first decade. In S. I. Troen & N. Lucas (Eds.), Israel: The first decade of independence (pp. 231–242). Albany, NY: State University of New York.
Gümüs, I. H. (2017). American missionaries in the Ottoman Empire: A conceptual metaphor analysis of missionary narrative, 1820–1898. New York: Transcript.
Hatzivassiliou, E. (2006). Greece and the Cold War: Frontline State, 1952–1967. London: Routledge.
Herzog, C. (1990). The Suez-Sinai Campaign: Background. In S. I. Troen & M. Shemesh (Eds.), The Suez – Sinai Crisis 1956: Retrospective and reappraisal (pp. 2–11). London: Frank Cass.
Hickok, R. M. (1998). The Imia/Kardak affair, 1995–96: A case of inadvertent conflict. European Security, 7(4), 118–136.
Holland, R. (1998). Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus, 1954–1959. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Howard, N. H. (1976). The Bicentennial in American – Turkish Relations. Middle East Journal, 30(3), 291–310.
Hubbard, P. J. (2011). The United States and the end of British Colonial Rule in Africa, 1941–1968. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Hutchison, R. W. (1993). Errand to the world: American protestant thought and foreign missions. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Iatrides, O. J., & Rizopoulos, N. X. (2000). The international dimension of the Greek Civil War. World Policy Journal, 17(1), 87–103.
Inan, Y. (2001). The current regime of the Turkish straits. Perceptions VI, 1.
Jankowski, P. J. (2002). Nasser’s Egypt, Arab Nationalism, and the United Arab Republic. London: Lynne Riener Publishers.
Kalyvas, N. S. (2015). Modern Greece: What everyone needs to know. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kassimeris, C. (2008). Greek response to the Cyprus invasion. Small Wars & Insurgencies, 19(2), 256–273.
Kassimeris, C. (2010). Greece and the American Embrace: Greek foreign policy towards Turkey, the US and the Western Alliance. London: I.B. Tauris.
Kassimeris, G. (2013). Inside Greek terrorism. London: Hurst & Company.
Kaufman, P. J. (2010). A concise history of U.S. Foreign policy. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Keeley, V. R. (2010). The Colonel’s Coup and the American Embassy: A diplomat’s view of the breakdown of democracy in Cold War Greece. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.
Kelly, S. (2000). Transatlantic diplomat: Sir Roger Makins, Ambassador to Washington and Joint Permanent Secretary to the Treasury. In S. Kelly & A. Gorst (Eds.), Whitehall and the Suez Crisis (pp. 157–177). London: Frank Cass.
Kiesling, J.-B. (2014). Greek Urban Warriors: Resistance and terrorism, 1967–2012. Athens: Lykavittos.
Kirby, W. M. (2006). The decline of British economic power since 1870. London: Routledge (reprint).
Kissinger, H. (1994). Diplomacy. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Kitchen, M. (1986). British policy towards the Soviet Union during the Second World War. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Klarevas, L. (2004). Were the Eagle and the Phoenix birds of a Feather? The United States and the Greek Coup of 1967. Hellenic Observatory – European Institute. Discussion paper no. 15. London: London School of Economics and Politics. http://www.lse.ac.uk/Hellenic-Observatory/Assets/Documents/Publications/Past-Discussion-Papers/DiscussionPaper15.pdf
Klarman, J. M. (2016). The Framers’ Coup: The making of the United States constitution. New York: Oxford University Press.
Knight, J. (1975). American Statecraft and the 1946 Black Sea Straits controversy. Political Science Quarterly, 90(3), 451–475.
Kober, A. (2016). Arms races and the Arab-Israeli conflict. In T. Mahnken et al. (Eds.), Arms race in international politics: From the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Koru, S. (July 18, 2017). Turkey’s Black Sea policy: Navigating between Russia and the West. Foreign Policy Research Institute. https://www.fpri.org/article/2017/07/turkeys-black-sea-policy-navigating-russia-west/
Kostis, K. (2018). History’s spoiled children: The story of Modern Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kuniholm, R. B. (1980). The origins of the Cold War in the Near East: Great power conflict and diplomacy in Iran, Turkey and Greece. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Kunz, B. D. (1991). The economic diplomacy of the Suez Crisis. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press.
Kyle, K. (2011). Suez: Britain’s End of Empire in the Middle East. London: I.B. Tauris.
Lambert, F. (2005). The Barbary Wars: American independence in the Atlantic World. New York: Hill & Wang.
Laqueur, W. (2003). A history of Zionism. New York: Tauris Parke Paperback.
Lavdas, A. K. (1997). The Europeanization of Greece: Interest politics and the crises of integration. London: Macmillan.
Lekea, K. I. (2014). 17N’s philosophy of terror: An analysis of the 17 November revolutionary organization. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.
Litsas, S. (2014). The Greek failing state and Its “smart power” prospects: A theoretical approach. Mediterranean Quarterly, 25(3), 52–73.
Louis, R. W. (1985). American anti-colonialism and the dissolution of the British Empire. International Affairs, 61(3), 395–420.
Lykogiannis, A. (2002). Britain and the Greek economic crisis, 1944–1947: From liberation to the Truman Doctrine. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press.
MacFie, L. A. (1987). The straits question at the Potsdam conference: The British position. Middle Eastern Studies, 23(1), 75–82.
MacFie, L. A. (1989). The Turkish straits in the Second World War, 1939–1945. Middle Eastern Studies, 25(2), 238–248.
MacFie, L. A. (2013). The end of the Ottoman Empire, 1908–1923. London: Routledge.
Macovei, M. (2009). Growth and economic crisis in Turkey: Leaving behind a turbulent past? Brussels: European Commission.
Mak, L. (2011). The British in Egypt: Community, crime, and crisis, 1822–1922. London: I.B. Tauris.
Makdisi, U. (2008). The question of American liberalism and the origins of the American Board Mission to the Levant and its historiography. In C. Schuman (Ed.), Liberal thought in the Eastern Mediterranean: Late 19th century until the 1960s (pp. 15–28). Leiden: Brill.
Maury, M. J. (May 1, 1977). The Greek Coup: A case of CIA Intervention? No, says our man in Athens. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1977/05/01/the-greek-coup-a-case-of-cia-intervention-no-says-our-man-in-athens/47abdd1e-a843-4f43-8057-ac26125be76d/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.60c5165e6cdb
Mentiply, J. David (2009). The British invasion of Egypt, 1882. E-International Relations. https://www.e-ir.info/2009/03/23/the-british-invasion-of-egypt-1882/
Miller, E. J. (2009). The United States and the making of Modern Greece: History and power 1950–1974. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press.
Mills, A. (2010). Streets of memory: Landscape, tolerance and national identity in Istanbul. Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press.
Morsy, A. L. (1993). The role of the United States in the Anglo-Egyptian agreement of 1954. Middle Eastern Studies, 29(3), 526–558.
Nachmani, A. (1990). Civil war and Foreign intervention in Greece: 1946–1949. Journal of Contemporary History, 25(4), 489–522.
Naval Documents Related to the United States War with the Barbary powers. (1939). Washington: Office of Naval Records and Library, Naval Department, 45(1).
Ned Lebow, R. (2008). A cultural theory of international theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Neiberg, M. (2015). Potsdam: The end of World War II and the remaking of Europe. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Nutting, A. (1967). No end of a lesson: The story of Suez. New York: C.N. Potter.
Nwaubani, E. (2003). The United States and the liquidation of European colonial rule in tropical Africa, 1941–1963. Cahiers d’ etudes africaines, XLIII(3), 505–511.
Oliver, A. (2014). American travelers on the Nile: Early U.S. visitors to Egypt, 1774–1839. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press.
Önis, Z., & Yilmas, S. (2015). Turkey and Russia in a shifting global order: Cooperation, conflict and asymmetric interdependence in a turbulent region. Third World Quarterly, 37, 71–95.
Onuf, S. P. (2000). Jefferson’s Empire: The language of American Nationhood. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia.
Oran, B. (2014). Exploring Turkishness: ‘Turkish’ and Türkiyeli. In S. Brennan & M. Herzog (Eds.), Turkish and the politics of national identity: Social, economic and cultural transformation. London: I.B. Tauris.
Painter, S. D. (1999). The Cold War: An international history. London: Routledge.
Palmer, A. M. (2000). Stoddert’s War: Naval operations during the Quasi-War with France, 1798–1801. Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute Press.
Parmet, S. H. (2017). Eisenhower and the American Crusades. New York, NY: Routledge.
Panzac, D. (1992). International and domestic maritime trade in the Ottoman Empire during the 18th century. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 24(2), 189–206.
Pearson, J. (2003). Sir Anthony Eden and the Suez Crisis: Reluctant gamble. Basingtone: Palgrave Macmillan.
Pelt, M. (2014). Military intervention and a crisis of democracy in Turkey: The Menderes Era and its demise. London: I.B. Tauris.
Pipes, R. (1997). The formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and nationalism, 1917–1923. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Plokhy, M. S. (2010). Yalta: The price of peace. New York: Viking.
Rabasa, A., & Stephen Larrabee, F. (2008). The rise of political Islam in Turkey. Santa Monica, CA: The Rand Corporation.
Race, C. (July 9, 2016). The rise of the American Navy, 1775–1914. Historynet. https://www.historynet.com/the-rise-of-the-american-navy-1775-1914.htm
Raftopoulos, E. (2000). The Crisis over the Imia Rocks and the Aegean Sea Regime: International Law as a language of common interest. In A. Chircop et al. (Eds.), The Aegean Sea after the end of the Cold War: Security and Law of the Sea issues (pp. 134–151). London: Macmillan Press.
Roberts, H. P., & Tull, J. N. (1999). Moroccan Sultan Sidi Muhammad Ibn Abdallah’s Diplomatic Initiatives towards the United States, 1777–1786. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 143(2), 233–265.
Rossignol, M.-J. (2004). The Nationalist Ferment: The origins of U.S. Foreign policy, 1789–1812. Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University Press.
Rubin, B. (1991). Pan – Arab Nationalism: The ideological dream as compelling force. Journal of Contemporary History, 26(3), 535–551.
Satterthwaite, C. J. (1972). The Truman Doctrine: Turkey. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 401, 74–84.
Saunders, F. B. (1996). The United States and Arab Nationalism: The Syrian Case, 1953–1960. Westpoint, CT: Praeger.
Stavridis, Stelios (2007). Anti-Americanism in Greece: Reactions to the 11-S, Afghanistan and Iraq. The Hellenic Observatory – European Institute, GreeSE Paper no. 6. London: London School of Economics and Politics. http://www.lse.ac.uk/europeanInstitute/research/hellenicObservatory/pdf/GreeSE/GreeSE06.pdf
Symonds, L. C. (2016). The US Navy: A concise history. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Tertius de Kay, J. (2004). A rage of glory: The life of commodore Stephen Decatur, USN. New York: Free Press.
The Truman Doctrine Research Files. (February 28, 1947). https://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/doctrine/large/documents/index.php?documentid=8-4&pagenumber=1
Thelen, D. (1999). The nation and beyond: Transnational perspectives on United States History. The Journal of American History, 86(3), 965–975.
Thorup, M. (2010). An intellectual history of terror: War, violence and the state. London: Routledge.
Troy, G. (2018). The Zionist ideas: Visions for the Jewish Homeland – Then, now, tomorrow. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
Tziampiris, A. (2011). Greece and the Macedonian question: An assessment of recent claims and criticisms. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 11(1), 69–83.
Umit, D. (2014). The American protestant missionary network in Ottoman Turkey, 1876–1914. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 4(6), 16–51.
Ünlü, N. (2002). The legal regime of the Turkish Straits. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
Urwin, W. D. (2014). The community of Europe: A history of European integration since 1945. London: Routledge.
Vlavianos, H. (1992). Greece, 1941–1949: From resistance to Civil War, the strategy of the Greek communist party. London: Macmillan.
Warner, G. (1991). The United States and the Suez Crisis. International Affairs, 67(2), 303–317.
Warner, G. (2009). The United States and the Cyprus Crisis of 1974. International Affairs, 85(1), 129–143.
Weisband, E. (1973). Turkish Foreign policy, 1943–1945: Small state diplomacy and great power politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Whipple, A. B. C. (2001). To the Shores of Tripoli. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press.
Zahariadis, N. (2005). Essence of political manipulation: Emotion, institutions & Greek Foreign policy. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.
Zayas, d. A. (2007). The Istanbul Pogrom of 6–7 September 1995 in the Light of International Law. Genocide Studies and Prevention, 2(2), 137–154.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Litsas, S.N. (2020). The U.S. in the Eastern Mediterranean: Historical and Political Considerations. In: US Foreign Policy in the Eastern Mediterranean. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36895-1_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36895-1_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-36894-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-36895-1
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)