On the fifth day of the August war, the Russian occupying forces blocked the main national highway and railway line at Gori, effectively cutting Georgia in two - western and eastern - isolated parts. Given the geographic location of Georgia, it consists of two main parts – west and east. Hence, communication between them has a strategic importance. The economy of eastern Georgia would find itself in dire straits if foodstuff ceases to come from Poti and Batumi ports. Likewise, the western part would degrade without Tbilisi, the country’s capital.
Therefore, protection of both western and eastern parts of Georgia even under the autonomous regime is of crucial importance because national highway and railway are very easy to block in Shida Kartli region. Even now the Russian armed units are stationed in just few kilometers (in occupied Akhalgori) from the national highway and can severe it in just thirty minutes if ordered.
This is why the United HQ came forward with the new initiative (supported by the leadership of Defense Ministry) to establish separate commands for eastern and western vectors. With proper organization and efforts, armed units in both vectors can be managed effectively.
In case of a west-east communication cutoff, commands of both vectors would be able to run defensive operations independently from several days to a couple of weeks, so that an enemy should fail to occupy either Poti port (Russia is likely to leave Achara and Batumi alone minding the Turkish factor) or the Georgian capital located in the eastern part of the country. Each day of resistance will be critical to allow time for the west and especially the United States to interfere politically just like it happened on 12 August, 2008.
Currently, the western and eastern rapid deployment forces are subordinate to the land force command which in turn receives orders from the United HQ. For the sake of rapid interactions, it would have been better if these two were directly and independently tied to the united HQ. In other words, we believe that the function of the land forces tends to suffer from an excessive bureaucratic element (this is a debatable question indeed).
In addition to creating rapid deployment forces in two vectors, aviation command will also be restored and even the sea vector may experience, if slowly, certain formative efforts. According to the Defense Ministry, today the main thing in aviation is to retain whatever we have. In other words, the main focus should be placed on readiness of transport helicopters (a renewal of their depot is not ruled out) as they would have an essential role in rapid deployment operations.