TBILISI: A US military training programme for Georgia, which gets under way this month, has more to do with stabilizing the still-weak former Soviet republic and furthering a NATO foothold in the Caucasus than in directly enlisting Georgian forces in the US-led ‘anti-terrorism’ campaign.
Some two dozen US special forces trainers arrived in Georgia on April 30 as an advance team for the substantial US effort, which will train roughly 2,000 Georgian special forces over the next two years.
While Georgia’s troubled Pankisi Gorge is believed to be the base of Al Qaeda-linked militants, a cleanup does not seem imminent. Agence France Presse reported that Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze pledged on Monday not to attack the area, saying: “We will not use force there — we are only concerned with the fate of the refugees (in the gorge).”
US assistance was planned well before Sept 11, and even after the attacks, its overriding mission remains the same: to mould the Georgian military into a more professional force, capable of handling the myriad challenges facing a country historically racked with ethnic separatism and now on the verge of becoming a important corridor for trade and energy from Central Asia to Europe. But in the process, the programme has drawn a jealous eye from Russia, nervous about long-term American interest in the nation.
Focusing on enhancing command and control mechanisms with the defence ministry — including a new National Military Command Center — the US programme also aims not only to raise professional competency but to set a new example of interagency coordination, which the military currently lacks.
“Our country must have an effective defence system, and this programme is of paramount importance for us ... in creating a new core for our armed forces,” says Gela Bezhuashvili, deputy defence minister.
Although US officials emphasize they will pack their bags after the roughly two years it takes to implement the 64 million dollars “Georgia Train-and-Equip” programme, this seems more likely a new phase of bilateral ties that will continue expanding.
“Everyone we train is a future trainer.... We want to leave in place a sustainable training programme for th the Georgians,” says team leader Lt. Col. Robert E. Waltemeyer, in Tbilisi before the rest of the estimated 150 special forces trainers arrive by the end of the month.
Georgian defence officials agree this seems a logical progression for defence cooperation that started in 1998, and is in step with Georgia’s stated interest in eventually joining NATO. Georgia, for the second year in a row, will host a 16-nation NATO exercise later this month. This broader, long-term agenda explains the howls of protest recently rising from Moscow. “Georgia ... is making a huge strategic mistake by turning to the US for help,” says Yury Gladkeyevich, an expert with the Interfax-AVN independent military news agency.
The Caucasus has been in Russia’s sphere of influence for 200 years and has always been critical bulwark against Iran (or Persia) and Turkey, a NATO country also actively developing bilateral military ties with Georgia through NATO’s Partners for Peace programme. For the second year in a row, Russia has not even responded to a Brussels invitation to attend the NATO exercises in Georgia as observers.
But there may be a silver lining: US training could help contain the festering lawlessness of the Pankisi Gorge, where Russia says Chechen rebels train and rearm. The 12-mile long valley near the Chechen border, where Russia wages a brutal war against separatists, is home to 10,000 people. Most are Kists, ethnic Chechens who have been “Georgianized” by living there for generations.
Georgia has hosted more than 7,000 Chechen refugees from the fighting there for the past three years, and Georgian security officials recently conceded they have tacitly allowed in armed rebels as long as they do not create trouble.
This has infuriated Russia, which asserts the right of “hot pursuit.” On numerous occasions Russia has violated Georgian airspace — in some instances even dropping bombs.
In recent months Washington’s view of the Chechen insurgency has come closer to Moscow’s, especially as intelligence connects Al Qaeda with some Chechen leaders, including “Khattab,” who was assassinated recently by a poisoned letter.
More recent media accounts report that the American arrival has already encouraged Al Qaeda Arabs to move on.—Dawn/The Christian Science Monitor News Service.