Military branches | Hellenic Armed Forces: Hellenic Army (Ellinikos Stratos, ES; includes National Guard reserves), Hellenic Navy (Elliniko Polemiko Navtiko, EPN), Hellenic Air Force (Elliniki Polemiki Aeroporia, EPA; includes air defense) (2021) |
Military service age and obligation | 19-45 years of age for compulsory military service; during wartime the law allows for recruitment beginning January of the year of inductee's 18th birthday, thus including 17 year olds; 18 years of age for volunteers; conscript service obligation is 1 year for the Army and 9 months for the Air Force and Navy; women are eligible for voluntary military service (2019) |
Military expenditures - percent of GDP | 2.68% of GDP (2020 est.) 2.36% of GDP (2019) 2.54% of GDP (2018) 2.38% of GDP (2017) 2.4% of GDP (2016) |
Military and security service personnel strengths | the Hellenic Armed Forces have approximately 130,000 active duty personnel (90,000 Army; 15,000 Navy; 25,000 Air Force); approximately 35,000 National Guard (2020) |
Military equipment inventories and acquisitions | the inventory of the Hellenic Armed Forces consists mostly of a mix of imported weapons from Europe and the US, as well as a limited number of domestically produced systems, particularly naval vessels; Germany is the leading supplier of weapons systems to Greece since 2010, followed by France and the US; Greece's defense industry is capable of producing naval vessels and associated subsystems (2020) |
Military deployments | approximately 1,000 Cyprus; 110 Kosovo (NATO); 150 Lebanon (UNIFIL) (Jan 2021) |
Military - note | Greece joined NATO in 1952 |
Source: CIA World Factbook
This page was last updated on September 18, 2021