The US Congress has approved the country’s defense budget for fiscal 2021. Both chambers showed an enviable unanimity. This budget is interesting because it mentions Georgia and Ukraine
Today the United States openly admits that it is in a state of “competition” with the Russian Federation, and, as you know, aggressive actions must be taken against a competitor.
The only way to justify aggressive actions against Russia is the need to contain “Russian aggression”. So the United States decided to increase attention and direct resources to the volatile military balance in the Black Sea region, as well as to increase the frequency and scale of NATO exercises and other multilateral maneuvers. Of course, this whole thing will not bypass Georgia and Ukraine.
Obviously, according to the logic of this very strategic competition, the Russian Federation also has the right to conduct frequent and large-scale exercises in the waters of New York or Boston, San Francisco or off the coast of Florida. Strategic competition cannot be a one-way street. Otherwise, it is no longer competition, but domination.
Once again, it was said about Ukraine’s accession to the NATO Expanded Partnership Program. The US Congress recalls the declaration adopted at the Bucharest summit in 2008, which stated that the leaders of the North Atlantic Alliance welcomed the Euro-Atlantic aspirations of Ukraine and Georgia for NATO membership.
“Today we agree that these countries will become members of NATO”, – the US Congress said in a statement.
The United States is investing $732 billion in the defense budget. Until recently, a third of this amount was not called anything other than astronomical. $69 billion is earmarked for overseas contingency operations, which, the document explains, will allow the military to maintain combat readiness, increase capabilities and invest in new programs and technologies needed to keep the country safe.
The military budget figures are, of course, impressive. It is also impressive that this is all happening during the coronavirus pandemic. It’s no secret that the United States holds the lead not only in the military budget, but also in the number of people infected with Covid-19 and, unfortunately, in the number of deaths from this disease. Today, analysts and experts in the United States are convinced that the state is clearly not coping with the coronavirus infection. In their opinion, the funds allocated for the fight against the disease are clearly insufficient.
How is Georgia fulfilling its NATO aspiration?
President Salome Zurabishvili took part in the regular send-off of Georgian peacekeepers to Afghanistan, sent another portion of cannon fodder.
Addressing the military, she noted that the positive assessments that Georgia is receiving from international partners, including the other day from NATO partners, are largely due to the Georgian military.
“Today the world is facing a very big problem, the problem of a pandemic, and the fact that Georgia fully fulfills its obligations even in these conditions is very important and speaks volumes”, – Zurabishvili said.
In the first half of the year, Georgia was proud of its successes in the fight against Covid-19. There were really very few cases and deaths in the country. Today the situation has changed dramatically – the negative dynamics have intensified, and the negative indicators are simply going through the roof.
The paradox is that even in such conditions, the Georgian authorities are proud of the conscientious fulfillment of their unilateral obligations to NATO, since for them this task is the most important and priority, against the background of which such a trifle as the situation of the Georgian population simply fades away.
Last week, the Lviv International Forum organized a Sabbath of experts with amazing one-sided thinking. The resolution of the forum states that the North Atlantic Alliance should promptly transfer a realistic plan of action for NATO membership to Georgia and Ukraine. The same experts stressed how important the Black Sea region is for transatlantic security, and called the forthcoming “aggression” from the Russian Federation the main threat.
The logic is just “wonderful”. For most NATO countries concerned about the security of the Black Sea region, it is thousands of kilometers away. But Russia, which is a Black Sea power, should not be worried about the security of the region, in which states and political forces openly hostile to it have appeared. Should it calmly watch as enemy armies and fleets concentrate their strike forces on her southern borders and do nothing in response?
Experts fear that NATO does not have a clear strategy, a vacuum is being created in the region, and Russia will easily fill it.
The resolution also states that Russia is increasing its military presence in the South Caucasus, which Moscow did as a result of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and is turning the Black Sea into a springboard for military operations in the Middle East, which, according to them, became possible thanks to the “occupation” Crimea.
The impudent cynicism of this statement does not fit into any framework. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was provoked not by Russia, but by Turkey, which is a NATO member. Turkey did not hide its open and versatile participation in the Karabakh conflict, in joint operations, providing Azerbaijan with its command personnel, manpower, various military equipment, intelligence information, recruiting and delivering international terrorists to Azerbaijan with the further aim of settling them in Nagorno-Karabakh for obtaining the necessary demographic situation in the future.
Russia did not increase its military presence, but prevented the massacre. Its real actions to rescue civilians, historical monuments and cultural objects were strikingly different from the verbal support that NATO countries provided to these people.
There are familiar faces among the participants of the Lviv forum. This is a retired general of the American army, former commander of the US ground forces in Europe Ben Hodges, former deputy NATO secretary general Alexander Vershbow, ex-commander of the Ukrainian navy Igor Voronchenko. And when will all these exes realize that their ideas are destructive, and that they are more dangerous than toxic substances and infections from the Lugar laboratory?
As they say in Russia, “only death will teach the fool a lesson”. Only drastic measures could help.
Irakli Chkheidze, EADaily