About a week ago, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian pledged to assist Georgia with modernizing its air defense system. From Georgia Today:
Le Drian said France would help Georgia develop and modernize its defensive weapons systems, including surface-to-air missiles. A French air defense officer has been assigned to Georgia to oversee the initial phase of the process.
Georgia inked a series of deals with French arms manufacturers Thales-Raytheon and MBDA in June and July 2015, respectively. It is widely presumed that these deals were for radar and C2 systems (Thales) and missiles (MBDA), which were financed by an extremely favorably structured French loan.
The exact specifications of the French air defense systems, and their expected military utility, remain confidential. A Thales-MBDA consortium is an active bidder for Poland’s Wisla air defense system relying on GroundMaster 200 radars and Aster 30 missiles; a similar system was also purchased in 2014 by Singapore. Early speculation in Georgia pointed to such an acquisition, which would have represented a considerable upgrade for the country’s medium-range air defense system. However, unconfirmed reports from France and Georgia suggested that the system will be armed with VL MICA missiles, a ground based variant of an MBDA short range surface-to-air missile system. Less capable and cheaper than the Aster 30, this is the likelier candidate.
Still, the MICA represents a genuine step forward for the Georgian air defense network, perhaps even a “game changer,” as described by former Defense Minister Tina Khidasheli in a 2015 interview. It would not, however, be able to defeat some of Russia’s more advanced missiles — like the Iskander series, which it bases in Armenia and are rumored to be in the Moscow-backed separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
One key political element to the 2015 French arms sale was Georgia’s deployment of a brigade of troops to the French-led European Union stabilization mission to the Central African Republic. According to knowledgeable senior Georgian government sources, Georgia’s willingness to contribute troops to the EU mission played a direct role in facilitating the arms sale. Le Drian’s comments in Tbilisi earlier this month should be taken in the same vein.
The Georgian government pledged to increase its military contingent in the Republic of Central Africa from five to 20 soldiers. The Georgian troops are part of the European Union’s peacekeeping mission in the war-torn nation.
Plus ca change. Georgian troops completed their CAR mission earlier this year, and fresh French assistance with air defense is likely linked to the Georgian military’s return to CAR in some moderate capacity. While the horse-trading between Paris and Tbilisi may not be wholly inspiring, it at least has the benefit of being an effective model for calibrating ties between the two states.
According to some Russian media sources (but unconfirmed in the Georgian media or elsewhere), the Georgian military is expected to start taking deliveries of French air defense components in early 2017.
Caucasus Defense 