Page 146 - Rifles 2017 Issue No 3

Joint Training and Evaluation Centre (JTEC) in Tbilisi and the South Caucasus
THE CITY OF TBILISI ITSELF STANDS AS AN OASIS OF CALM IN AN OTHERWISE HIGHLY UNSTABLE AND CONVOLUTED PART OF THE WORLD
At the start of the New Year, I found myself mobilised for deployment to Tbilisi, Georgia in the South Caucasus for seven months as the UK contribution to the NATO presence and effort in the region.
The city of Tbilisi itself stands as an oasis of calm in an otherwise highly unstable and convoluted part of the world. Just twenty- ve miles northwest of the city, lies the province of South Ossetia: one of the two Georgian regions seized by Russia in 2008. Like the Crimea, these regions are under ever-increasing Russian occupation, leading to hostile relations between both countries and an overly militarised presence along the demarcation lines. To the northeast of Tbilisi lies the Pankisi gorge: an infamous region inhabited by Chechen refugees who use the area as a resting and training ground for Jihadi groups otherwise active in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. An hour’s drive south of Tbilisi will see you either in Azerbaijan or Armenia: countries who have been at war against one another since 1988 over the Nagorno-Karabakh region located in southwest Azerbaijan (there were over 200 fatalities in this region last year alone).
Due to being the only member of the British Army deployed in the South Caucasus, my role (and its subsequent responsibilities) was multi- faceted. My foremost duty lay as a combat advisor to the Georgian army as part of the Joint Training and Evaluation Centre (JTEC) – one of the main incentives underlined in the Substantial NATO-Georgia Package – whose task involved training and advising Georgian infantry units both in barracks and in the eld. The team I worked alongside in the JTEC was comprised of of cers from the Baltic region
and Scandinavia. Fortunately for me
their operational expertise, affability and grasp of the English language were all impeccable.
The NATO-Georgia Package is just one portion of a bilateral stabilisation effort. The second portion of this effort is the US-led Georgian Defence Readiness Programme (GDRP). With the objectives of these portions closely aligned, I found myself also acting as a liaison of cer between NATO and the US in Georgia.
For my professional advice to be relevant and in order to get a true understanding of the political climate, I often found myself liaising with the EU Monitoring Mission (who patrolled the demar- cation lines of the Russian-occupied regions) and the OSCE (who monitored the Nagorno-Karabakh region as well as other trouble hotspots). Both organisations kept me updated on developments and – on occasions – I joined in on the more military focused patrols. These occasions allowed me the rare and exciting pleasure of getting a close look at the various trouble-makers of the South Caucasus by engaging in overt reconnaissance.
When I was not engrossed in these tasks or assisting the defence section of the UK embassy, I found myself invited to a plethora of diplomatic receptions, foreign embassy galas and other formal celebrations, all of which gave me a fasci- nating insight into the diplomatic world. The seven months I spent in the South Caucasus were at times stressful and hard work; however, overall the deployment was a genuinely enjoyable and hugely enlightening experience. I feel immensely grateful to have had the privilege and opportunity to represent the British Army and The Ri es in the
region and I will always look back at my time there with great fondness.
Capt Achilles Barron,
Intelligence Of cer