Georgia Invites United States to Chart its Own Policy

In the aftermath of the September 11 tragedy, American foreign policy's capacity to promote American interests has become an urgent matter. President George W. Bush's administration has guided foreign-policy institutions to promote the values his administration has articulated, and to link these values to American interests. But the reinvigorated sense of American purpose has arisen not simply from national catharsis, but also in the face of unique opportunities to make a difference elsewhere, such as in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia.

After the shock of the terrorist attacks, the United States discovered support from unexpected quarters. Former foes from Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia came to the assistance of the United States in Operation Enduring Freedom. The common objective of routing global terrorism has opened the door to the possibility of aligning on other common fronts. These possible alignments have emerged in the unlikely territory of Georgia.

The Republic of Georgia, often the stage for Byzantine political affairs, is the setting of a significant subplot in the global campaign against terror. During President Eduard Shevardnadze's autumn 2001 visit to the United States, President Bush agreed to rapidly increase US security assistance to this nation on the Black Sea. Bush's desire to more energetically cooperate with Georgia's military intensified when US officials suggested Chechen rebels holed up in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge had connections to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda. The US Department of Defense now reports that the two-year program will transform 2,000 elite personnel into a multi-tasked specialized outfit. Despite the specter of a foreign terrorist element in Pankisi, the program appears to want to bolster overall security and stability in the Caucasus. American advisors are working to bolster Georgian soldiers' competence and morale, not merely their counterterrorism skills. Georgia's armed forces, numbering 30,000 soldiers, are underpaid and overburdened by a lack of funds, corruption and a lingering Soviet approach to leadership. In the words of one US military officer, "I personally have not witnessed a military in more need of assistance."

Experts compare the train-and-equip program to the African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI) employed in the late 1990s in sub-Saharan Africa. That program taught basic peacekeeping and humanitarian response, including methods for protecting human rights in combat and police situations. The flexibility of the program would allow a recipient to focus on areas such as emergency medical response or logistics that need special attention. Many critics have faulted ACRI-like programs for having an inflexible "cookie-cutter" approach, but the breadth of Georgia's needs may blunt such criticism. The US endeavor will upgrade the nuts and bolts of this ill-equipped and ill-trained military while schooling a generation of the military elite in the ways of Western political and security concepts. This broad effort could not begin too soon or succeed too quickly.

Georgia's chaotic military starkly threatens American interests. The country shares a border with Chechnya and expects to house part of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, an American-backed oil project. [For background information see the EurasiaNet Business and Economics archive]. Yet some political observers from inside Georgia note that until summer 2002, the Ministry of Defense did not have a crisis command and control operations center. With the American National Military Command Center as a model, Georgia has now installed a basic mechanism for handling national security emergencies. If it can function efficiently, this new office can help reverse the vestiges of the highly centralized Soviet structure that kept the republics out of major decision-making operations.

America's vigorous military aid does not amount to a giveaway to Georgia's government. It tests the commitment of Shevardnadze and Georgian Defense Minister David Tevzadze to the ideal of a strong national army, and compels them to abandon old attitudes in favor of flexible, pragmatic approaches to security problems. Shevardnadze has taken a step toward meeting this challenge by calling for a much smaller, robust military. Georgia's roughly 30,000-soldier military makes little strategic or fiscal sense. Many conscripts come from rural areas and lack sufficient training to be an effective fighting force. A manageable army might field four battalions of 2,000. But a reduction of this scale would force Shevardnadze and Tevzadze to make tough decisions about thinning out the bloated officer corps and establishing specialized functions. So the American training regimen may encourage political acts that resonate with democratic values.

The military in its present form reflects Georgia's tumultuous ten years of independence, ethnic conflict, crime, corruption and demoralization. The military will have a large role in Georgia's future – maintaining civilian control, especially after a democratic change of leadership; reuniting the entire country; rebuilding the wreckage from civil disorder, conflict and crime; and creating a type of civic renewal. These challenges, if met, could serve as pillars that define a national identity for Georgians that transcends ethnic loyalties. They could also engender greater national pride and confidence. Such pride and confidence, while harder to measure, are as desirable for American planners as any military feat Georgia could muster.

The US military is only at the beginning of its program in Georgia, and knows it will be a long time before evidence of success – or even of paths toward success – can emerge. Already, concerns about the numbers of qualified applicants became an issue when the Ministry of Defense indicated that roughly 100 Georgian military personnel had applied for the 600 trainee slots. Many soldiers said the cost of transportation and physical examinations made it hard to submit completed applications. Nonetheless, as the Americans settle in, the Pentagon has assured the world that Georgia's military will become broadly stronger.

The Pentagon can make such a forecast because its purposes in Georgia extend beyond that nation's borders. The United States hopes to stabilize the country in order to protect the recently begun Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline. From its desire for pipeline-driven development to its multi-front war on terrorism, the United States faces many threats and opportunities in Georgia. By acknowledging its duty as a democratic nation to share its vision and strengths, the United States is sending advisors to Georgia with a nuanced mission. As they train Georgian soldiers, these advisors will seek a unique balance between exporting American values and rationally serving America's strategic interests.