06 October 2008

U.S. Military Aid to Georgia Was Never Directed at Russia

Training focused exclusively on counterinsurgency and Iraq, expert says

Georgian Army soldiers attend a special service in memory of Georgian soldiers killed in recent combat operations.

By Howard Cincotta
Special Correspondent

Washington — Contrary to repeated claims by Russian authorities, the United States took careful steps to ensure that its military training efforts in Georgia never constituted any kind of threat to Russian security interests, according to the official who oversaw the program in 2007 and 2008.

“At no time did the U.S. attempt to train or equip the Georgian armed forces for a conflict with Russia,” wrote Lieutenant Colonel Robert Hamilton, a defense and foreign policy analyst now working for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“In fact, we deliberately avoided supplying or training the Georgians in conventional warfare capabilities like helicopters, artillery or tanks,” he said in an America.gov interview.

Instead, U.S. training focused on developing basic infantry and counterinsurgency skills, and preparing special units for service with coalition forces in Iraq, according to Hamilton.

PANKISI

The United States actually conducted two distinct training programs with Georgia. The first began in 2002. At the time, both Georgia and Russia were concerned about a potential safe haven for terrorists and criminals in Georgia’s lawless and violent Pankisi Gorge bordering Chechnya.  Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened military action, alleging that Georgia was permitting Chechen rebels a safe haven in the area, Hamilton said.

The Bush administration responded with the two-year Georgia Train and Equip Program (GTEP) to prepare several light infantry battalions for counterinsurgency operations in trouble spots like Pankisi.

“The Pankisi Gorge was the catalyst,” Hamilton said. He recalls a U.S. Army training officer at the time saying, “We were always instructed not to do anything that would not make the Russians welcome our involvement.”

Hamilton said that, under GTEP, the United States provided Georgia with such basic, nonlethal items as uniforms, boots and communications gear — while facilitating and transporting donations of small arms and ammunition from former Warsaw Pact nations in Eastern Europe.

The U.S. training effort and Georgian operations in Pankisi clearly succeeded.  “The identification and safe removal of hidden weapons caches in Pankisi enabled Georgian security forces to improve security in the area,” according to the 2006 State Department terrorism report.

A year later, the State Department reported that the head of the Russian Border Protection Department “noted publicly that there were no attempts by militants to infiltrate Russia from Georgia in 2007.” (See “Country Reports on Terrorism 2007.”)

TRAINING FOR IRAQ

The Georgia Sustainment and Stability Operations Program (GSSOP), estimated at $190 million, began in 2004 to train battalion-size units in light infantry tactics, engineering, logistics and command-and-control operations for service with coalition forces in Iraq, according to the U.S. Defense Department.

As with the earlier GTEP program, none of the training involved heavy weaponry like artillery or armored vehicles that could raise Russian security concerns, Hamilton said.

To ensure its transparency, the Georgia training operation routinely was placed on the agenda of any U.S.-Russia meeting, according to Under Secretary of Defense Eric Edelman. (See “Georgia Security Aid No Threat to Russia, Defense Official Says.”)

The number of U.S. military trainers in Georgia never exceeded 70 at any one time. They were primarily U.S. Marines, along with a Navy emergency medical training team and communications specialists from the Air Force and Army, according to a 2007 Defense Department press release.

At the time Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton led the training effort, the Georgians decided to expand their commitment in Iraq from about 850 personnel to a brigade-size unit of approximately 2,000 that could conduct active patrols and not just provide static security for bases.

“That meant additional training with up-armored Humvees and other specialized gear,” Hamilton said.  Nevertheless, the limit on heavy combat equipment remained in place.

“The whole interagency process was very well coordinated at the embassy in Tbilisi [Georgia],” Hamilton says, “and everyone understood that it would have been irresponsible to train for these ‘frozen conflicts’ in the region.”

OPERATION ASSURED DELIVERY

Georgia’s operations with coalition forces in Iraq ended abruptly with the Russian assault in August, and by September, the United States had airlifted all 1,800 Georgian troops back home, in time to participate in the post-war humanitarian relief effort.

The U.S. humanitarian mission, dubbed Operation Assured Delivery, airlifted more than 1,100 tons of supplies between August 18 and September 10, including half a million individual food rations, 25,000 hygiene kits, 20,000 sleeping bags and 8,000 cots, the Defense Department said.  Another 123 tons arrived by sea.

A joint U.S.-European assessment team is now in Georgia to assess the level of civilian and military damage, and civilian monitors from the European Union have recently arrived. (See “European Union Monitors Enter Security Buffer Zones in Georgia.”)

For more information, see Standing with Georgia.