Georgia Army
Relatively little of the military industry of the Soviet Union was located in Georgia. One Tbilisi plant assembled military training aircraft that were the basis of a small Georgian air force. Most weapons obtained by the various armed units operating in Georgia after 1990 apparently were purchased illegally from Soviet (and later Russian) officers and soldiers stationed in the Caucasus.
In May 1992, leaders of the CIS set quotas for the transfer of Soviet military equipment to republic armed forces. According to this plan, Georgia was to receive 220 tanks, 220 armored vehicles, 300 artillery pieces, 100 military aircraft, and fifty attack helicopters. Kitovani complained in December 1992 that Georgia, unlike the other republics, had not yet received any of its allotment.
By the late 1990s, budget constraints and the advice of Western advisers led the Georgian leadership to slash the size of the army to create a small, mobile army that could meet NATO standards.
In early 2002 the United States launched a two-year, $64 million program, "Train and Equip," to create three battalions and one motorized company meeting NATO standards. Following the successful conclusion of that program in 2004, a follow-on initiative was launched with comparable funding to train a further 4,000 Georgian servicemen.
The armed forces were downsized from approximately 38,000 men to some 20,000 in early 2004, mainly through reductions in ancillary, noncombat personnel. When he was appointed defense minister in early 2004, Gela Bezhuashvili said the armed forces would be further reduced, to around 15,000 men.
Georgia launched an ambitious program in the fall of 2004 to train 15,000-20,000 reservists. By late October, three battalions of reservists had been established. These battalions underwent intensive basic training over a period of several weeks. Plans called for a total of 15 to be trained by the end of 2005. Irakli Okruashvili, who took over as defense minister in December 2004, said while visiting Washington in June 2005 that it may be necessary to increase the number of personnel. This might be done by adding one more brigade to the existing four.
In its report for 2005, Georgia's International Security Advisory Board (ISAB) noted that previous reviews identified a total strength of 13,000-15,000 active-duty personnel as an optimum for the Georgian armed forces. A four-brigade structure, along with an increased reserve force, represent an increase of 25-30 percent on earlier planning figures in the Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) agreed with NATO in 2004.
Observers suggested that the rationale for reversing the downsizing of recent years was to launch a new military offensive to bring the unrecognized breakaway Republic of South Ossetia back under the control of the Georgian government.
In addition to upping manpower, Georgia greatly increased its defense spending, from 79 million laris ($43 million) in 2004 to 317 million laris in 2005. The increase was consistent with the requirement that countries aspiring to NATO membership spend at least 2 percent of GDP on defense.
The weaponry purchased reportedly includes armored personnel carriers, self-propelled artillery, helicopters, and T-72 tanks. The latter three items called into question earlier statements that Georgia has no aggressive intentions and plans to strengthen its armed forces exclusively for defensive purposes, to repel any external invasion. These weapons are well suited for an offensive against the Ossetians. From mid-June to mid-July 2005, some 800 Georgian troops conducted large-scale tank exercises using some 170 battle tanks. One year earlier, Georgia had only 76 T-55 and T-72 tanks.
Georgia had succeeded, with assistance of the United States, Turkey, and other allies, in transforming the paramilitary National Guard into a trained, disciplined, and well-equipped fighting force qualified for NATO membership.
