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Should Georgia Become a Black Sea Hezbollah?

The U.S. should help Georgia turn its military into a Black Sea version of Hezbollah. At least, that’s the contention of one military analyst, who spoke with DoD Buzz. America has pledged to rebuild Tblisi’s armed forces, after its disastrous August war with Russia. “We will have to help them rebuild because they are a […]

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The U.S. should help Georgia turn its military into a Black Sea version of Hezbollah. At least, that's the contention of one military analyst, who spoke with DoD Buzz.

America has pledged to rebuild Tblisi's armed forces, after its disastrous August war with Russia. “We will have to help them rebuild because they are a partner in the war on terror,” says General John Craddock, head of the U.S. European
Command. Already, U.S. ships and planes are delivering aid to help Georgia recover from the Russian attack. And Tblisi's air defense network is being tied in with NATO's.

But the medium-to-long-term question is: What kind of military should Georgia have? Before the war, Tblisi had a pretty conventional set of forces, supplied and trained by the U.S. and Israel. They didn't exactly put up much of a fight against Russia. Which is why this anonymous analyst counsels a different approach.

What Hezbollah did so effectively, as was shown in the 2006
Lebanon war, was combine modern weaponry with a distributed infantry force that fought in guerrilla fashion...

Equipped with top-shelf anti-armor systems, such as the U.S. Dragon and
Javelin and the Russian-built RPG-29 and AT-14 Kornet, such a force would perhaps better be able to exploit Georgia’s mountainous and urbanized terrain against channelized Russian armored columns than a conventionally organized combat brigade, as Hezbollah did in south
Lebanon…

Many in the U.S. military view such “hybrid” opponents… as the most challenging threat American troops may face in a future war.*

There are a whole bunch of analysts, in fact, who view these hybrids as the very future of combat.

[Photo: ZC]

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