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https://blog.
wired.
com/defense/2008/08/did-us-military.
html
Georgia and Russia are careening towards
war. And the U.S. isn't exactly a detached observer in the
fight.
The
American military has been training and equipping
Georgian troops for years
The news thus far: Georgia,
which has been locked in a drone war over the
separatist enclave of Abkhazia, has launched an
offensive to reclaim another breakaway territory,
South Ossetia. Latest reports indicate that
Georgian forces are laying siege to Tskhinvali,
the South Ossetian capital.
And Russia, which has backed the
separatists, is sending in the tanks
So why should we
care? Oh, just the prospect of a larger regional war that
could drag in Russia � and involve the United States as
well. Since early 2002, the U.S. government has
given a healthy amount of military aid to Georgia. When
I last visited South Ossetia, Georgian troops
manned a checkpoint outside Tskhinvali --
decked out in surplus U.S.
Army uniforms and new body armor
The
first U.S. aid came under the rubric of the Georgia
Train and Equip Program (ostensibly to
counter alleged Al Qaeda influence in the Pankisi
Gorge); then, under the Sustainment and Stability
Operations Program. Georgia returned the favor,
committing thousands of troops to the
multi-national coalition in Iraq. Last fall, the
Georgians doubled their contingent, making them
the third-largest contributor to the
coalition. Not bad for a nation of 4.
6 million people
Leaving
aside the question of Russian interference (see
below), the larger concern has been that Georgia might
be tempted to use its newfound military prowess to
resolve domestic conflicts by force
As Sergei
Shamba, the foreign affairs minister of Abkhazia, told
me in 2006: �The Georgians are euphoric because they have
been equipped, trained, that they have gained military
experience in Iraq It feeds this revanchist mood�
How can South Ossetia be demilitarized, when all of
Georgia is bristling with weaponry, and it�s only an hour�s
ride by tank from Tbilisi to Tskhinvali?�
One of the U.S.
military trainers put it to me a bit more bluntly.
�We�re giving
them the knife,� he said �Will they use it?�
