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| One of the most interesting and fastest-growing areas of cooperation between Azerbaijan and Georgia is the military sector, in particular through high-level bilateral contact regarding defense industry development. Turkey's participation and support in this process is vital, offering a trilateral format. | |||
| Neither Baku nor Tbilisi institutionalized military cooperation at a contractual level until 2002, when both sides entered a more intensive period of defense cooperation. On April 9, 2002, they signed a framework protocol on the above-mentioned issues when the Georgian minister of defense visited Baku. The 2008 August War (Russian-Georgian war) led both Azerbaijan and Georgia to rethink their security priorities; Georgia's approach was to focus more intensively on territorial integrity. Tbilisi started a new rapprochement initiative with South Ossetia and Abkhazia, called "engagement without recognition." Georgia has changed its defense strategy following its wartime experiences. First of all, Georgia has developed its defense industry, notably with Israeli support. Georgia acquired drones from Israeli defense electronics company Elbit Systems under a 2007 contract. But during the August War, the Israeli-produced drones were ineffective, and Russia destroyed them with ease. A Wikileaks cable revealed that Israel and Russia made a secret deal: Israel gave Russia the ‘data link' code for Georgia's UAVs, and in return, Russia provided Israel with the codes for Iran's Tor-M1s. When Russia targeted the drones, the non-official claim was that Russia's military had acquired the data link to hack into the system. This was one reason that Georgia re-defined its military industry strategy under the banner "Manufacture your own products; believe in your own products." The Georgian administration showed its official dissatisfaction with Israel in March 2012, when President Mikheil Saakashvili said that “you do not depend on others, in case someone cheats you or shares information with others.” Generally, within the Azerbaijan and Georgia military trading partnership, Tbilisi prefers to acquire modern military technologies from European partners rather than Azerbaijan, while Azerbaijan partners with former Soviet countries, including Russia, Ukraine and Belarus on conventional arms trading. The second reason for Georgia's development of its national defence industry was that, as stated by Saakashvili, “after the August 2008 war, Georgia was left without sources of arms supply.” The US would not support Georgia as it had before 2008, due to the Obama administration's new priorities and rapprochement with Moscow. The same attitude was seen in some European capitals, where officials believed that giving military support to Georgia risked triggering a new war. Meanwhile, critics of the Saakashvili government stated that Georgia's domestic military production provided a way to circumvent the de facto blockade on arms sales to Tbilisi. Georgia launched a new strategy from 2008, prioritizing the establishment of “a military industrial complex.” Tbilisi has in recent years produced catapult-launched surveillance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as well as its first armored personnel carrier, presented at the May 26, 2011 military parade. The main problem for Georgia is its limited defence budget, which hampers the modernization of existing technologies, and constrains investment in new technologies. Therefore, defense co-operation with Azerbaijan, which has a much larger budget, is attractive. From Azerbaijan's perspective, the post-2008 period can be broadly characterized as "strategic diversification," starting with energy policy, foreign policy and the military industry. Azerbaijan was concerned with the Western position during the 2008 war, which reinforced its perception that Western institutions are ill-prepared to deal with a major crisis in the South Caucasus. From this perspective, cooperation with NATO is not enough to safeguard national security. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan based its strategy on two objectives: first, to improve its relationship with Moscow, by giving Russia the impression that Baku is not interested membership with NATO. Arguably, the results of the 2008 NATO Bucharest Summit influenced Russia's aggressive policy towards Georgia. Therefore, many observers in the region were surprised when Azerbaijan announced its decision to join the Non-Aligned Movement in May 2011, but in reality it was a wise strategic decision. Membership in the Non-Aligned Movement helped Baku to later become a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, enabling it to raise the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict at the international level. There have been new developments in the military realm: in June 2010, Azerbaijan adopted a new Military Doctrine, which listed the country's military threats; the military and strategic basis of national security, the main objectives of the armed forces both in war and in peacetime, and the prospects for strengthening the country's military potential. Significantly, it emphasized the development of infrastructure and improvement of the defense and military industry. The Military Doctrine clearly approved the strategic importance of the development of the defense industry and co-operation with foreign partners. Since 2011, Azerbaijan has signed or enhanced defence industry co-operation agreements with governments and companies from South Korea, Israel, South Africa and Turkey. Indeed, Azerbaijan's defence co-operation with Turkey dates back to the early independence period, and bilateral relations were developed further in 2011, through a joint venture between the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defence Industry and Turkey's state-owned Machinery and Chemistry Enterprise, focused on developing small arms and ammunition. Similar to Turkey, Israel took an important place in Azerbaijan's defense co-operation. Since 2011, Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) has been involved with Azerbaijan in establishing a joint venture on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The Israeli Aerostar and Orbiter 2M UAVs are being manufactured by Baku's Azad Systems Co., a joint venture between Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry and Israel's Aeronautics Defense Systems. Azerbaijan has bought a high volume of military equipment from various countries, but chooses to cooperate at the defense industry level with other countries. The volume of military equipment received from traditional partners like Turkey and Israel looks comparatively small, but in real terms the cooperation level in defence industries is much higher. | |||
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Azerbaijan-Georgia military cooperation and Turkey's influence (1)
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