According to a classified Pentagon report obtained by The New York Times, reconstruction of the Georgian Army in the wake of the South Ossetia War has not gone well:
The Georgian military, which was routed in August during a brief war with Russia, suffers from widespread mismanagement and unqualified leadership, and is in need of extensive reforms to become a modern fighting force, according to a classified Pentagon assessment conducted this fall.Other problems including a disastrously convoluted command and control system, and a senior military leadership compromised by political favoritism. These are problems that can't be solved in the short term, and that provide yet another reason why fast-tracking Georgian membership in NATO is a terrible, terrible idea.The assessment, by a team of American military officers that worked quietly in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, in October and November, offers a clinical view of a politicized military culture and substandard practices in a country lobbying to join NATO while embroiled in two bloody territorial disputes with Russia.
In fairness, I suspect that many of the military organizations left by the receding Soviet Empire suffer from the same problems. But then, most of those organizations don't belong to countries that see fit to pick fights with Russia, and consequently to have their military deficiencies exposed to the world.
--Robert Farley
