Georgian Defence Forces
Georgia's national military — NATO-partnered and Western-trained through two decades, under a government whose westward orientation is now in question.
Broad area of activity
Government-controlled territory; the boundary lines with Abkhazia and South Ossetia are policed by interior structures with the EUMM monitoring from the government side. Broad structural description only.
Notable history
Rebuilt twice: after the 1990s civil and secession wars, and after the five-day defeat of 2008. Two decades of NATO partnership — Iraq and Afghanistan deployments among the alliance's largest per capita, US-supported training programmes, a professionalisation drive — built an interoperable light force. The 2024–26 political crisis has strained the Western defence relationships the force was built on, with some cooperation programmes publicly paused by partners.
Strengths
NATO-standard training lineage and deployment experience; coherent professional core; mountain and light-infantry suitability.
Limitations
Small size and limited heavy/air capability against its only plausible state threat; strategic depth measured in tens of kilometres; a political environment placing its partnership anchors in doubt.
Reported & historical equipment associations
Su-25: Operated the type and hosted its Soviet-era production line at Tbilisi; 2008 war employment documented.
Related locations
Gori: 2008 war operations and the garrison town's historical role.
Key events
The Russia–Georgia War
After months of escalation, Georgia assaults Tskhinvali; Russia's prepared counter-invasion drives Georgian forces from South Ossetia, opens a second front from Abkhazia, and pushes into uncontested Georgia before an EU-mediated ceasefire on the fifth day. The EU's independent inquiry later finds Georgia fired first within a conflict both sides had prepared and Russia had provoked.
Campaign involvement
The South Ossetia war
Fighting between Georgian forces and South Ossetian separatists over the former autonomous oblast kills around a thousand and displaces tens of thousands in both directions. The June 1992 Sochi agreement ends the fighting with a Russian-led mixed peacekeeping format and the region outside Tbilisi's control.
The Abkhazia war and the expulsion of Georgians
War between Georgian forces and Abkhaz separatists — backed by North Caucasus volunteers and Russian elements — ends with the fall of Sukhumi (Sokhumi) on 27 September 1993 and the flight or expulsion of most of Abkhazia's Georgian population, some 200,000–250,000 people, amid documented ethnic violence on both sides.