17 February 2012. PenzaNews. During his Oval Office meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama on 30 January 2012 Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili spoke about the importance of greater military cooperation between Georgia and the United States, especially as it relates to the strengthening of Georgian defense capability. However, at the press conference following the meeting the U.S. President who listened carefully to his Georgian counterpart did not say anything specific about the issue.

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“Their comments to the press afterwards suggested that differences of opinion remained over the question of the U.S. supplying weapons to Georgia… Tbilisi [is] pushing hard to get the U.S. to give or sell the Georgians “defensive” weapons, and the U.S. [is] demurring,” said Joshua Kucera, an independent journalist who covers the military and security in Central Asia and the Caucasus from Washington for EurasiaNet’s The Bug Pit blog, in his comments on the outcomes of the meeting.

Obama reacted negatively to the provision in the bill passed by Congress in late 2011 calling for the “normalization” of military relations with Georgia through the renewal of arms sales to the republic. This is not the first time Congress, and the Republican Party, in particular, has tried to pressure the Obama administration for the change in its policy toward Georgia. In February 2011 four Republican senators Jon Kyl, James Risch, Mark Kirk, and James Inhofe sent a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates calling on the Obama Administration to place a missile defense-related radar, known as TPY-2, in Georgia.

Though this request was ignored, Josh Rogin, an analyst for The Cable blog of the Foreign Policy magazine, noted that the letter was a sign that the new Congress was prepared to intensify its advocacy of restoring defense cooperation with Georgia, which had slowed since the 2008 Russian-Georgian conflict.

Among other senators calling for greater military support and cooperation for Georgia are John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The latter, in particular, already stated in 2009 that Tbilisi lacked basic capacity for territorial defense.

Meanwhile, Jos Boonstra and Neil Melvin note in their working paper “Challenging the South Caucasus security deficit” for Madrid-based European think tank FRIDE that there is a pressing case for the United States to review its policies toward the South Caucasus. This is explained by a changed political landscape in Washington following the Congressional midterm elections and growing doubts about the ability of the reset to ensure security in Eurasia.

However, in their opinion, the U.S. policy under President Obama appears more nuanced than under his predecessor George W. Bush who attached too much importance to Georgia as a “beacon of democracy”, so American while remaining a key player in the region does not wish to fill the security vacuum left by the declining role of the OSCE and NATO in the region.

In general, experts express different views on how the U.S. policy toward military cooperation with Georgia could change in the near future.

Director of the Berthold Beitz Center for Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Central Asia Alexander Rahr said in an interview with news agency PenzaNews that he sees no reasons for a radical change in the U.S. approach to military cooperation with Georgia.

“President Obama from his very first days in office (already after the end of the armed conflict between Russia and Georgia) refrained from meeting Saakashvili. This was a strong signal to Russia that Obama saw Saakashvili as responsible for the outbreak of the 2008 war. The Americans now understand that there is a stalemate in its reset policy with Russia. As regards sanctions against Syria Russia has taken a solid stance and is unwilling to cooperate with the West unlike it did during the Libyan crisis. I do not think that the Americans are interested in arming Georgia against Russia; there is no doubt about that. I see no tendencies signaling America’s return to the policies of the Bush era aimed at isolating and containing Russia in the post-Soviet space. I also see no clear American interests in this region. The United States has practically “given up” Ukraine and Belarus with Azerbaijan doing whatever it wants when it comes to the NABUCCO plans, its energy policy and building alliances with Turkey. Rather the issue is about the U.S. seeking to gain ground in the South Caucasus for possible expansion of its military presence in the region. I think that this is exactly why the U.S. keeps open the option to use Georgian territory in such cases. This is why negotiations on military cooperation with Saakashvili are now renewed,” he explained.

An expert of the German Council on Foreign Relations Stefan Meister in turn thinks that there is growing support among some American circles for Georgian plans to strengthen its defense capability.

“This is a small shift in the U.S. policy because in the past Obama did not even want to meet Saakashvili. All the projects of the Bush administration aimed at promoting democracy and containing Russia were discontinued by Obama. But I think he is pressured now by Congress and the Republican Party to change his policy so he does not want to give them any reason to criticize him. Besides, Obama seems to be trying to find a balance between the promotion of democracy, which has traditionally part of the U.S. agenda, and support for American allies, on the one hand, and avoiding the methods used by the Bush administration, on the other. When I spoke with the U.S. officials here in Berlin, for example, they pointed out the need to find a new balance in their approach to the post-Soviet world. So there is probably a change in the policy with the U.S. considering providing weapons to Georgia in the future,” the expert noted.

As Jos Boonstra, Head of the Europe and Central Asia Monitoring (EUCAM) programme of Madrid-based European think tank FRIDE, suggested, Georgia is only seeking to boost its image in the region and on the international arena by showing off its close ties to Washington.

“The Georgians are rather vocal about the possibility of increased defence cooperation with the U.S. and receiving or buying defensive weapons. The U.S. is less enthusiastic about highlighting this cooperation, also in not wanting to set new tensions between Moscow and Washington. Both have not made clear what the additional cooperation and arms delivery entail. In my view, this cooperation and arms delivery are likely to be limited and more a positive token for the Georgian government,” he noted.

Jos Boonstra also pointed out that the United States (and also NATO) had played a more modest role in the South Caucasus over the past year. In his opinion, with the maturing of the US foreign policy under Obama the Americans might have come to the conclusion that the South Caucasus is a region of strategic importance to them, not so much because of Russia but more because of the Middle East (foremost Iran), transport routes to Afghanistan and Asia and local protracted conflicts.

“Georgia as a small country has been a substantial contributor to the ISAF mission in Afghanistan. The Americans want to take Georgia serious and be a genuine partner. Since NATO membership is off the table for the foreseeable future, the Americans might have felt that they need to offer something to Georgia for its efforts in Afghanistan and lack of possibility in integrating in regional defence cooperation mechanisms. After all Georgia has difficulty finding its place in security cooperation because it will not be part of NATO or the EU any time soon and is not interested to join Russian driven defence cooperation through CSTO,” Jos Boonstra added.

In a similar vein, Alexander Rahr views skeptically the prospect of Georgia’s accession to NATO despite recent statements of NATO officials about the “significant progress in the NATO accession process” made by Georgia and it having been officially designated a NATO aspirant country in December 2011.

“NATO will not expand to the South Caucasus because it is clear to everyone that the Alliance has no capacity to intervene in the existing territorial conflicts in the region. In fact, today NATO is focused on Arab countries such as Libya, Syria and Iran. NATO today has no concern for Georgia or the territorial conflicts in the Caucasus, so this is out of the question,” he noted.

Stefan Meister believes that Georgia needs weapons to defend its territory since NATO will not come to its rescue if a conflict breaks out in the region.

“Georgia surely fears Russian attacks because Russia keeps its troops in South Ossetia which is very close to Georgian infrastructure. However, I do not think that Russia has any such plans. But it is part of Saakashvili’s self-understanding and ideology that Russia is the big enemy against which Georgia has to be able to defend itself. So the main threat is in Saakashvili’s mind. But opposition to Russia cannot be the sole reason for Saakashvili to want to get more weapons. Saakashvili is not so stupid as to try to annex South Ossetia or Abkhazia. This relates more to the general trend toward militarization in the region, e.g. in Armenia and Azerbaijan. The overall security situation in the region is growing more dangerous,” the expert said.

When speaking about the possible consequences of the U.S. renewing arms delivery to Georgia, former Head of the International Cooperation Office of the Russian Ministry of Defense, retired general Yevgeny Buzhinsky suggested that the U.S.-Russian relations would definitely deteriorate.

“Georgia is a very special case, and if I were a U.S. policymaker I would keep a very low profile for the time being with Georgia ... If they want to antagonize Russia, stop talking about transit [i.e. Russia’s consent to the shipping of U.S. military cargo through Russian territory to Afghanistan]; it will again be the “Cold Peace,” he explained.

Meanwhile, on 13 February 2012 the White House released its proposed budget for the next fiscal year which will commence in October this year. The military aid the United States is going to allocate to Georgia in fiscal year 2013 amounts to USD 14.4 million, which exceeds the military aid that all the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia combined will receive in 2013. To compare, Armenia and Azerbaijan will only get USD 2.7 million each. Similarly, more than half of the military aid for the Caucasus and Central Asia, USD 18 million, was earmarked for Georgia for fiscal year 2012. However, it remains to be seen if any of that military aid includes weapons for Georgia.