Posted on 05/07/2016 12:36:14 PM PDT by Lorianne
The United States is for the first time shipping its tanks across the Black Sea for joint exercises with Georgia.
The U.S. Army's 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division loaded the tanks on to ferries in Varna, Bulgaria, in order to ship them to Batumi ahead of the second annual Noble Partner military exercises to be held later this month. The exercises will include 650 American troops, as well as 500 from Georgia and 150 from the United Kingdom.
Last year's Noble Partner (the first such exercise) was noteworthy for the fact that the U.S. shipped Bradley Fighting Vehicles across the Black Sea for the occasion. It was the first such movement of heavy U.S. materiel across the sea and was a vivid illustration of the U.S.'s ability to project power around Russia's periphery. This year's addition of tanks to the mix ups the stakes a little more.
Ahead of the tanks' arrival, a delegation of U.S. officers including the top army officer in Europe General Ben Hodges, visited Batumi to prepare. "We are here to look at port in Batumi to understand what is required to move equipment, how fast we can move equipment. So this is part of professional soldiers studying the logistics. But we also came here to demonstrate to Georgia... that we are committed to work with Georgia, to continue work improving interoperability," Hodges said, as reported by Georgia's Ministry of Defense.
(Excerpt) Read more at eurasianet.org ...
Why are these lunatics provoking the Russians? There’s no upside to doing so and a lot of downside. Is Obama trying to start WWIII? or are his banker friends egging him on? Obama/Kerry foreign policy is unhinged.
Oh, THAT Georgia!
Obama keeps provoking and making threatening moves against Russia— this can’t lead to anything good. Maybe if he can create a super-sized new war he will declare martial law , stay in USA and our White House, and probably toss both Hillary and trump in jail
Its to keep the pressure on Russia, let them know they are surrounded, by western weapons and bankers.
Breakaway Tskhinvali temporarily closes so-called border with Georgia
http://agenda.ge/news/57527/eng
Wow. Bush through Georgia to the dogs when Russia invaded. That was a shameful event.
The Russian mafia loves Western bankers.
So this is why I’ve a lot of outbound traffic from McGuire AFB.
I don’t see any gain for us doing this. It looks like Bulgaria will profit the most from a transit contract. We have much more serious issues. This sounds more like some type of corporate palm greasing operation.
please God let us make it until 2017.
who knows what this nut has planned and what are his generals thinking?
how big is Georgia? does it tarnish all the Reagan did if it falls back into Russia’s hands?
I agree with you.
Parts of the north and the south. So-called “breakaway” regions.
It was at the very end of his term, so Bush didn’t have any long term commands to give. Still ... he remembered that Georgia has some 3000 troops in Iraq, so he ordered to give them transport planes back to home and parked an US ship in a Georgian port.
I think that one US ship went a long way to stop Russians from their original plan of conquering all Georgia.
I doubt it. The last time the Russian kontraktniki went vacationing in Georgia, they killed around 80-90 Georgian tanks. And most of their crews.
I'll be happy if we don't have any stories about Russian aircraft buzzing American cities....
Don’t give Obama any ideas. Of course, it’s probably too late for that.
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