Never under-estimate the legacy of power by intimidation through cold war era fear mongering. The Turkish straits connect the Aegean and Mediterranean seas to the Black Sea, a strategically and commercially valuable sea transportation route. With Azerbaijan under soviet control, it was easy to pressure Greece and Turkey into joining NATO after WW2. Controlling this junction point enabled NATO to administratively restrict the late Soviet Navy, and NATO continues to use its control of this point to restrict the Iranian and Russian Federation Navies respectively. With NATO moving to the Ukraine, Greece has diminished in strategic importance. Greece failing to have used the previously peaceful decades to develop infrastructure and develop a more unified people is also a hold over from how thoroughly infiltrated their society was prior to the dissolution of the Ottoman empire.