The Strategic Significance of Greek Thrace: Current Dynamics and Emerging Factors
The Strategic Significance of Greek Thrace: Current Dynamics and Emerging Factors

Summary/Abstract: Greece‘s northeastern province of Thrace has historically played a very significant strategic role in terms of economy and defense. The great Roman trade route, the Via Egnatia, spanning the southern Balkans from east to west, passed across it; for the Byzantines and later the Ottomans, Thrace was the gateway to Constantinople, to be defended at all costs. The extensive and fertile Thracian plains, most of which are now concentrated in Turkish Thrace, were known as “the breadbasket of Constantinople’ for the grains crops they supplied to the capital. From the perspective of modern Greece, looking from the other direction of course, Thrace is strategically significant as the only land route through which Turkey could attack with infantry in the case of an invasion. During Communism, Greece also had to keep a wary eye on Bulgaria, which lies to the north and also possesses a portion of the geographical region of Thrace. However, with the end of the Soviet threat and the absorption of Bulgaria into the European Union, that threat has evaporated and Greece no longer has to look to secure its northern flank (save for possible infiltration from human traffickers and so on).

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