American Sergeant opinion on Georgian military

[Rich46yo]

The real difference between "NATO standard" military machines and, "the rest of the worlds militaries", is that NATO standard attracts far better , better educated, motivated...ect personel then non NATO ones do.

Whats NATO standard? Well NATO, and many others including countries like Israel, Singapore, Japan, Australia, South Africa....ect

Russia and her former slave states produce brilliant people. They just dont enter military service, and in fact, turn avoidence of conscription into an art form.

How much could a place like Georgia pay their troops? How much could they possibly afford to train them and equip them?

And look at the vast sums of money we in the west spend to keep military service an attractive option for young people to consider. I myself am always impressed by the quality of recruit our military attracts. They are educated, motivated, and of general high moral fiber. Yes there are exceptions. There always is. But in general? And even more so our boys and girls enter volunteer service to better themselves, while the "others" join up cause they have to.

I like to play around in Google Earth a lot. You really learn a lot about a place looking at satalite photos of it. So one day take a look at the bases of NATO standard military services and "the other ones". NATO bases are all well ordered, look spotless, equipment is in good repair, and even the bloody shrubbery is manicured. Now look at the others???

I was in USAF myself and I can tell you that the world will never know a more Professional organization then USAF. But all the Yanks services are, Marines, Army, Navy, Coast Guard. And its somthing you see in all the NATO military services.

[Tom5572]

During OIF 05-08, I was stationed at FOB War Horse just outside of Baquba, Iraq (Dyahla (SP?)province).  We had a contingent of Georgian Soldiers there.  For the most part they stayed in their lane.  There were some culteral issues that we had to deal with (it is kinda hard for American GI's to get used to three guys taking a shower together in a three by three shower stall).  They feigned ignorance a lot of the time because they could and get away with it.  We had a mix of their Spec Ops guys and support guys so we got the full spectrum.  Were they lazy, no more than any other Soldier I have seen who had a chance to sham out.  Did they steal things, I am not sure, I never caught them at it, but they sure did get blamed for everything that came up missing.  (Anyone who has been in the military before knows that Soldiers can be just as much a theif as anyone else, hell I once stole a door off a HMMWV infront of the owning unit's formation, aw those were the days...).  There were some hot Georgian women, that is sure, and they were part of the Spec Ops. 
     From what I saw, the officers in the Georgian Army do what we NCO's do in our Army.  Our Army is unique in that, no where in the world is so much responsibility given to the non-coms as in our military.  I believe that is the strength of our military and always has been.  Our officers trust the NCO's to get the job done, and we do.  In the Georgian Army, the Non-coms are not trusted to get the job done.  It seemed to me they were micromanaged to an extreme.
     My thoughts here are only my opinion.  I did not work directly with the Georgians, only observed them.  Should they be allowed in NATO?  I think they should.  Yes, they are getting hella money from the US to be in Iraq, but then again, can their economy really support a deployment like this?  Having an allie that close to Russia is not a bad thing.  The Cold War might be over but I think that Russia is still the biggest threat on the world scene.  They still have nuclear weapons and it does not take that long to program a target. 
     I think I will leave my thoughts there. 

V/R
SSG Tom Glaser (AKA WMTom)
US Army

[Boroda]

During OIF 05-08, I was stationed at FOB War Horse just outside of Baquba, Iraq (Dyahla (SP?)province).  We had a contingent of Georgian Soldiers there.  For the most part they stayed in their lane.  There were some culteral issues that we had to deal with (it is kinda hard for American GI's to get used to three guys taking a shower together in a three by three shower stall).  They feigned ignorance a lot of the time because they could and get away with it.  We had a mix of their Spec Ops guys and support guys so we got the full spectrum.  Were they lazy, no more than any other Soldier I have seen who had a chance to sham out.  Did they steal things, I am not sure, I never caught them at it, but they sure did get blamed for everything that came up missing.  (Anyone who has been in the military before knows that Soldiers can be just as much a theif as anyone else, hell I once stole a door off a HMMWV infront of the owning unit's formation, aw those were the days...).  There were some hot Georgian women, that is sure, and they were part of the Spec Ops. 
     From what I saw, the officers in the Georgian Army do what we NCO's do in our Army.  Our Army is unique in that, no where in the world is so much responsibility given to the non-coms as in our military.  I believe that is the strength of our military and always has been.  Our officers trust the NCO's to get the job done, and we do.  In the Georgian Army, the Non-coms are not trusted to get the job done.  It seemed to me they were micromanaged to an extreme.
     My thoughts here are only my opinion.  I did not work directly with the Georgians, only observed them.  Should they be allowed in NATO?  I think they should.  Yes, they are getting hella money from the US to be in Iraq, but then again, can their economy really support a deployment like this?  Having an allie that close to Russia is not a bad thing.  The Cold War might be over but I think that Russia is still the biggest threat on the world scene.  They still have nuclear weapons and it does not take that long to program a target. 
     I think I will leave my thoughts there. 

V/R
SSG Tom Glaser (AKA WMTom)
US Army

Thanks, so the guy I quoted was right.

Also I have to say that currently the US is the biggest threat on the world scene.

[Tom5572]

I would like to clarify my point about Russia being the biggest threat on the world scene.  I think in terms of what is a threat to the United States not what is a threat to the wolrd.  It is not my intent to offend anyone here, only put my thoughts out there on the subject of the Georgians. 
     There have been great strides in the relations between Russia and the US but countries do not have friends, they have interests (i.e. France).  Right now it is in Russia's best interests to be on friendly relations with the US, just as it is in the US's best interest to be on friendly relations with Russia.   
     
V/R
SSG Tom Glaser

[Maverick]

Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.

[Dago]

Pravda still pouring out it's highly imaginative version of "the truth"?    I suppose they still say Stalin was a misunderstood but sensitive person who loved to knit. 

[AKIron]

Mayn Russians suffered a severe blow to their ego when the Soviet Union died, take Boroda for example. Is it any wonder they want to restore their former glory? Will the west prevent them? Can we?

[Hangtime]

Mayn Russians suffered a severe blow to their ego when the Soviet Union died, take Boroda for example. Is it any wonder they want to restore their former glory? Will the west prevent them? Can we?

In Russia, size of dicks related to size of empire. Little empire.... little dicks all over it.

[Yeager]

Also I have to say that currently the US is the biggest threat on the world scene.

If I were Russian and longed for the days of Soviet dominance over Europe I would say the same damned thing.

Apparently, Ukraine wants no part of your new USSR boroda....cant say that I blame them.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/2570285/Ukraine-offers-satellite-defence-co-operation-with-Europe-and-US.html
"The crisis over Russia's display of military might in Georgia has alarmed ex-Soviet satellites states in a broad arc from the Baltics to Central Asia. Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, all of which harbour bitter memories of Soviet occupation, have expressed solidarity with the Georgian position."

Go eat that rotten pie 

[Rich46yo]

We do more then "trust" our non-coms and junior officers. Not only are the junior ranks of our military services allowed to change orders during a flowing battle they are actually trained to do so. This was always a big reason the Israelis kicked the snot out of the Arabs. The Arab services always had highly regimitated orders their junior officers had to follow out of fear of a firing squad. This has always been the classic failure of the Soviet model, the fact that orders were set in stone and could in no way be changed.

Certain Soviet units had such power, like their excellent spetsnaz units. But they were only trusted due to their high Political reliability and due to the fact special forces, in order to be effective, had to have some leeway in operational terms.

Put it this way. When our airborne got tossed all over the map in Normandy they had no problem hobbling together units, led by junior officers, who used great discretion to attack German targets of opportunity. An airborne division of Russians probably would have looked at each other saying, "who me"?

Credit Stalin with changing that for a time when he saw the war was lost unless he actually allowed gifted commanders to fight it. After the disastrous first year of Germanys attack Stalin began to give senior commanders unprecedented freedom to formulate strategy. That is as long as they didn't publicly take credit for it.

But in general the highly centralized command model the Soviets exported wasn't very efficient. Free societies tend to produce leaders that are trusted. A Yank army Capt. or LT wouldn't think twice of changing an attack plan if he thought it would be more effective and/or save more lives while achieving the objectives.