Lieutenant General (retd) Panagiotis Gartzonikas has commanded at every army level from platoon to division. A 1981 graduate of the Military Academy he served as an Armor officer in a variety of leadership assignments. At formation level he commanded XX Armor Division and 88 Infantry Brigade of Lemnos island. Key staff appointments include Deputy Director of the Army General Staff Operations Branch and Director of the Army General Staff Plans and Policy Branch.
Regarding international experience he has worked for both EU and NATO. As European Union Long Term Observer for the first Palestinian elections in 1995, he deployed to the West Bank and Gaza participating in the first EU operation abroad. He also spent three years in NATO as Planning Team Leader at the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) G5 Plans. In that capacity he deployed to Afghanistan in 2006 and served an eight month-tour at HQ ISAF.
In terms of professional military education he graduated from both the Command and General Staff College and National Defence College courses and he attended the Company Commanders Course in Panzerschule (Armor School), Germany.
From the academic side he earned a Master of Arts degree in Strategic Studies and a Master of Science degree in Defense Analysis from the United States Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He is currently completing his dissertation (‘’Civil-military Relations and Strategic Assessment’’) at the Panteion University of Athens.
He has taught Strategy at the Military Academy and he is a lecturer at the National Defence College. Moreover he is the director of the peer-reviewed STRATEGEIN e-journal (https://strategein.gr/, (in Greek, abstracts in English).