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Greece — Military File
Rankings · Power · Military

Greece — Military File

Armed forces, personnel, equipment, deployments: the complete military file on Greece.

Active personnel (est.)112,000
World rank by personnel#44 / 162

Magna assessment

MBB · 56/100 — The Magna grade is our 0–100 composite of structural national power — five dimensions, 100+ indicators. It is the Bureau's own assessment, not a mirror of World Bank or CIA figures.

Momentum 0 — Quarterly momentum: the Bureau's read on the country's trajectory over the last quarter, from −10 (deteriorating fast) to +10 (accelerating).

No single event defined Jul–Sep 2026. The country's position is the product of long-cycle forces — geography, trade, neighbours — all of which held steady.

Momentum at zero is not stagnation; it is the accurate record of a quarter without a catalyst.

Armed forces

Hellenic Armed Forces (HAF; Ellinikes Enoples Dynamis, EED): Hellenic Army (Ellinikos Stratos, ES; includes National Guard), Hellenic Navy (Elliniko Polemiko Navtiko, EPN), Hellenic Air Force (Elliniki Polemiki Aeroporia, EPA; includes air defense) (2025)

Personnel strength

approximately 112,000 active-duty military personnel (2025)

Equipment

the military's inventory consists of a mix of domestically produced and imported armaments from Europe and the US; in recent years, France, Germany, the UK, and the US have been major suppliers of weapons systems; Greece's defense industry is capable of producing a range of military hardware, including naval vessels and associated subsystems (2025)

Service age & obligation

18 years of age for voluntary military service for men and women; all Greek men 19-45 are subject to compulsory military service; 12-month obligation for all services (note - as an exception, the duration of the full military service is 9 instead of 12 months if conscripts, after the initial training, serve the entire remaining time in certain areas of the eastern borders, in Cyprus, or in certain military units) (2026)

Deployments

approximately 1,000 Cyprus; 120 Kosovo (NATO); 130 Lebanon (UNIFIL) (2025)

Note

the Hellenic Armed Forces (HAF) are responsible for protecting Greece’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity; the HAF also maintains a presence on Cyprus (the Hellenic Force in Cyprus or ELDYK) to assist and support the Cypriot National Guard; as a member of the EU, NATO, and other international organizations, the HAF participates in multinational peacekeeping and other security missions abroad, taking a particular interest in missions occurring in the near regions, such as the Balkans, the Mediterranean and Aegean seas, the Middle East, and North Africa; areas of focus for the HAF include instability in the Balkans, territorial disputes with Turkey, and support to European security through the EU and NATO Greece’s NATO membership is a key component of its security; it became a NATO member in 1952 and occupies a strategic location in the Eastern Mediterranean on NATO’s southern flank; Greece is host to several NATO facilities, including the Deployable Corps Greece (NDC-GR) headquarters in Thessaloniki, the Combined Air Operations Center in Larissa, the Multinational Peace Support Operations Training Center in Kilkis, the Multinational Sealift Coordination Center in Athens, and the Naval Base, Maritime Interdiction Operational Training Centre, and NATO Missile Firing Installation at Souda, Crete (2025)

Related

Power indexMilitary indexLargest armiesGreece — FactbookGreece — RankingsLeader: Greece

Across the Bureau

Greece — Country ProfileDid Greece acquire 20x F-35A?Did Greece acquire 24x Rafale?What are the main airports of Greece?History of Greece — TimelineKyriakos Mitsotakis — Leader of GreeceGreece Ranking — Magna Country RankingsWhat is the population of Greece?