Lectures and Trainings

   

Public Lecture on Georgia’s Defence and Security Agenda

On 26 July 2011 Dr. Eugene Kogan, International Institute for Liberal Policy, Vienna, Austria, conducted a public lecture titled “Georgia’s Defence and Security Agenda” at GFSIS.  The presenter discussed Georgia’s defence and security situation, directions and challenges before and after the August 2008 conflict.  A brief overview of the lecture and key findings is provided below.    

Before the outbreak of the August 2008 war administration of President Mikheil Saakashvili invested heavily in building and developing the Land Forces. The August 2008 war and its aftermath highlighted variety of deficiencies in Georgia’s defence and security matters. The Georgian Armed Forces (GAF) including its reserve component performed badly during the war. As a result, a breach of trust between population of Georgia and its military emerged as one of the most important deficiencies. Unfortunately for Georgia and its population a breach of trust has not yet been properly addressed. In addition to a breach of trust there is also a lack of dialogue between military in general and the MoD officials in particular and the population of Georgia on defence and security matters. If case of any potential confrontation and/or conflict with Russia administration of President Saakashvili will need to have a full support of Georgia’s population and not just the military. Therefore, a breach of trust and a lack of dialogue need to be urgently addressed and not to be delayed for whatever reasons. The reserve component, which constitute the link between population of Georgia and the military needs to be not just discussed but realised.
Previous frequent reshuffles of the Minister of Defence and the Chief of Joint Staff (CJS) and their bureaucracy severely damaged cohesion and work of the most important defence and security institutions of Georgia. It needs to be emphasised and reiterated that Georgia cannot afford a luxury of having not competent, reliable and trustworthy team of defence and security experts. The same military experts together with experts from Parliament and the National Security Council (NSC) need to work hand in hand to accelerate approval of strategic documents such as Strategic Defence Review (SDR) and National Security Review (NSR) and their subsequent implementation.

Inter-service coordination needs to be not just maintained but enhanced. It is of utmost importance to have well-educated, well-trained, mobile, well-armed and efficient and highly professional forces. This task requires not just good planning but very creative thinking. Namely, how under the budget constraint such a difficult task can be accomplished. Georgian people cannot win the war against Russia by throwing the stones. Home-made arms need to be manufactured because Georgia remains under undeclared Western arms embargo.