NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on December 2 following the Foreign Ministerial that the Allies and Georgia have approved an updated Substantial NATO-Georgia Package (SNGP).

SNGP will consist of 16 initiatives, three of which are completely new.

The new initiatives are as follows:

• The first of these three new initiatives is meant to support Georgia in the development of a deployable military medical capacity, which can also respond to domestic and global medical emergencies.
• The second initiative aims to improve Georgia’s English language training capacity.
• The third aims to improve the codification and standardization system, which would ensure a high level of interoperability of new Georgian defence projects / programmes with NATO requirements.

”When asked about the importance of the third initiative, Ben Hodges, former commander of the US Army in Europe told the Accent: “Part of what makes NATO forces so effective, is their ability to come together on short notice and conduct operations despite each nation bringing own national identity and culture, different technical capabilities and communications systems, etc”.

“That’s why NATO standards are key. Every nation must be able to perform combat tasks and functions to the same standard; every nation must be able to communicate with each other. Otherwise, we lose the positive effects of our formations. For example, the U.S.-led Enhanced Forward Presence Battle Group (EFP BG) in Poland consists of a U.S. Stryker Battalion, which includes a British Army Reconnaissance Squadron, a Romanian Air Defense Battery and a Croatian Infantry Company. This EFP BG operates under the command of a Polish brigade. So you can see it would be chaos and totally ineffective if this multinational formation did not all function to the same standard, conduct operations in a known, recognized standardized way, and if it couldn’t communicate across the entire formation, especially given the threat of Russian electronic warfare and rockets and long-range artillery,” Hodges told the Accent.

As he stated, the Substantial NATO-Georgia Package is a good step in the right direction.

“I will always want to see NATO increase its efforts and presence in the greater Black Sea region. And I’d like to see the U.S, UK, and others increase their bilateral effort there as well,” he added.