Tbilisi still believes in getting 2 percent access into NATO’s paradise

Obviously, there are no perspectives for Georgia to join the North Atlantic alliance.

However, the Ministry of Defense of Georgia is trying to make the military costs reach more than 2% of GDP. Levan Izoria, the Head of the Military Department, announced this news at the meeting of the Defense and Security Committee of NATO Parliamentary Assembly which was held in Tbilisi.

The Minister of Defense of Georgia underlined that this was NATO’s main requirement but he forgot to mention these notorious 2%, which were Donald Trump’s ultimatum to his allies from NATO. But Georgia connects with it indirectly because it is not a member of NATO and it will never be because of unresolved territorial arguments.

Moreover, the last summit in Brussel showed that Trump was not able to attain a strong promise from the European allies from NATO on increasing military costs up to a required level. Instead, they offered an annual report how they would (but actually would not) do it.

A strong desire to serve

Brussel and Washington have been making promises to Tbilisi that they will include it into the alliance since the revolution of roses in 2003, but ,in fact, they have been using Georgia as a strategic base in order to provoke and disturb Russia with their military presence in the Caucasus region. Georgian-NATO trainings are very often held. The joint Georgia-NATO training center was open in 2015.

However, the shameful war in 2008 showed the real cost of Brussel and Washington’s guaranties when the “allies” gave their word to President Mikheil Saakashvili to support him in his the Southern-Ossetia adventure but left him when the Russian soldiers appeared. Neither the US nor Europe were not going to fight and get a theoretical conflict with Russia because of Georgia. Most of them do not know where Georgia is on the map.

Despite the fact that the court of Tbilisi issued an order to arrest ex-President Saakashvili, the current Georgian government has not stopped being loyal towards NATO, but it has taken the military-capitalistic requirements regarding 2% of its GDP, however, no one required it to do it. It seems it has a really strong desire to serve.

Fulfill requirements and wishes “We are meeting the requirement, although, I want to say that this percentage level must be higher for us, taking into account the fact that we inherited an old Soviet military equipment which requires rearmament”, Levan Izoria said.

It means that the Georgians are going to fulfill the requirement, although, nobody asked them to do it. In 2014, NATO promised to Georgia at its summit in Wales that it would provide Georgia, as well as Ukraine, with the Membership Action Plan (MAP), however, Georgia did not receive it. Georgia was refused to join the associate partnership with NATO at the summit in 2016. Barack Obama said before that Georgia “is not on the way leading to NATO”.

Its chances to join the alliance were lower than Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia, and were equal to faded chances of Moldova (before Igor Dodon became a president) as it, as well as Georgia, received a vague program “the Initiative of Defense and Security”.

Obviously, Tbilisi is trying to avoid MAP and join NATO in a simpler way expecting that unpredictable Trump will suddenly appreciate this passion call to collaboration from the Black Sea seaside of the Caucasus.

Obviously defeated Armed Forces

The original feature of the Georgian Armed Forces is that they have only the ground forces. They do not have independent air and naval forces. The Georgian Air Forces include 13 brigades: 5 infantry ones, two artilleries, special operations forces, air defense forces, air forces and two reserved ones. The coast guard executes the functionality of the navy forces and it has only patrol and fight boats that left after the defeat in 2008.

As Mr. Izoria admitted, the equipment is totally Soviet. It includes tanks T-72 which were partially modernized by Israel and old tanks T-55AM which are in stock now. There is a small quantity of pseudo modern combat vehicles of an infantry “Lazika” and an armored carrier “Didigori” made in Georgia.

The air defense brigade has Soviet anti-aircraft missile complexes “Buk”, C-125 and “Wasp” and five Israel 3PK Spider. The base of the air brigade are attack aircrafts Su-25, moreover, the same ten aircrafts were bought from Bulgaria in order to be taken apart for details. The aircraft plant of Tbilisi that produced aircrafts sequentially in the Soviet period assembles licensed ultra-light passenger aircraft under now.

Obviously, the current Georgian leaders clearly evaluate the combat ability of their military forces and their capability to fight against an enemy and they do not plan to fight against anyone because they understand how hopeless an attempt could be. There are no psychologically unstable Georgian politicians, however, they have kept the anti-Russian strategy as “the tie eater” did it before.

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