Just when some people were tempted to think that the “Greek problem” was solved, it has re-emerged and looks more menacing than ever.

Many wonder why the problems surrounding such a small economy can be the focus for a world facing seemingly far larger issues. In economic terms, Greece is small. But like some microscopic virus, the Greek economic problem carries with it the power of contagion in an economically sick world.

Badly handled, the Greek financial crisis could prove fatal to the existing international monetary system.

Greece’s problem is rooted in history. For centuries, the Greeks were subjugated by the often brutal Turks as part of their Ottoman Empire. In 1921, some brave Greeks started a revolutionary war. Lasting seven grueling years, it aroused the interest of the great powers, led by England and including Russia, France, Austria and Prussia.

The great powers sided with the Christian Greeks but maintained competing interests among themselves. This made for considerable confusion and the subjugation of Greek interests.

England’s prime aim was to prevent Russia from obtaining warm-water ports and influence in the Mediterranean. Simultaneously, the UK wanted to save Turkey from massive defeat and humiliation, retaining it as a “barrier” against the spread of Russian power.

After the Battle of Navarino, in which the great powers annihilated the Turkish-Egyptian navies, the Turks were forced to negotiate — but in the absence of the Greeks. The great powers carved out an area renamed as modern Greece. However, with very poor soil it was relatively impoverished. Therefore, the new Greece was not viable economically. As a necessity, England subsidized Greece.

Bled of treasure and manpower by the 10 years of two world wars, England was almost broke. She handed the baton of Greek subsidy to the United States. Following the Cold War, U.S. politicians felt no need to continue subsidizing Greece as an outpost covering the Soviet underbelly. The United States then passed the baton to the new European economic power, Germany.

Inherently unsound economically, Greece was admitted to the eurozone for political reasons. Clearly, Germany saw the potential for extending its political power within the EU and that a more diluted euro would reduce German export prices. The false accounting, lying and the turning of blind eyes by the EU mandarins and regulators to the true Greek economy suited Germany.

Thanks largely to the Internet, the creation of the pseudo-democratic EU superstate by stealth took longer than had been planned. Therefore, German voters became aware of the subsidies planned to flow from Germany to Greece — but hidden from general public view within the internal accounts of the EU superstate.

In response to voter pressure, German politicians suddenly forgot their inherited obligations to subsidize Greece. To mollify their voters, they decided to crack the whip, forcing Greece into an economic straitjacket in return for loans.

As recent elections showed, the austerity medicine prescribed by Germany is driving Greece back toward communism. Led by people like Alexis Tsipras, Greece threatens, like Iceland, to default on its debt.

Should such blackmail be seen to succeed, other “Club Med” nations likely will follow suit, threatening the euro, the Western banking system and the entire international fiat monetary world.

Greece might be small. But if badly diagnosed and mishandled, its economic disease could threaten worldwide poverty.

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