Defence & Arms
New Order of Battle in Tiblisi
By Intelligence Online 25/6/09
Jun 26, 2009 - 11:06:20 AM

T here's nothing to indicate Tbilisi has recently bought a large amount of new weaponry, as Russia claims, for the simple fact the world's major arms exporters have decided not to supply it for the moment. Only the country's anti-aircraft defences have been stiffened with light missiles (manpads) to guard Georgia's air space.

Elsewhere, the country's defence budget, which amounts to EUR 419 million, has fallen by 40% this year. In that context, the Georgian navy, which proved ineffective in 2008, has been incorporated into the coast guard, which answers to the interior ministry. The move put paid to a plan to buy two new corvettes.

With a new defence minister, 41-year- old Vasil Sikharulidze, at the helm (he was former deputy secretary of Georgia's security council and then ambassador in Washington), the 32,000-strong Georgian army has adopted a fresh strategic document. Named "Vision 2009," it focuses on the defence of the country rather than on winning back the breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The accent is on "surveillance-detection-protection" and Washington, which signed a strategic partnership with Georgia in early January, is fully behind it.

The new Georgian army also needs as new corps of senior officers because when president Mikheil Saakashvili took power he fired dozens of officers who had been trained in Moscow during the Soviet era. In 2008 the country counted only five generals while 3,000-man brigades were commanded by lieutenant colonels. So a generation of senior officers must be trained up to NATO standards. To help in that effort, Tbilissi is to send 150 men to Afghanistan by the end of the year for surveillance missions in zones under French command. In the tense political climate prevailing after the conflict in 2008, surveillance of military personnel was handed over to Bacho Akhalaia, deputy minister of defence. Oddly, however, he answers to the interior minister, Vano Merabichvili. The two found themselves dealing with the mutiny of a tank battalion in early May