The President of Georgia Salome Zurabishvili has said that NATO and Europe should take more active actions towards Georgia. At the same time she stated that Georgia should take more initiatives and show its priorities to the country's partners.

"Talking that we are approaching Europe and NATO and the door is open for membership is not enough! We want more! Time has come for more active actions.

The time has also come to take more initiatives, show our priorities to our partners, and work with them to define the specific steps for the next stage. We need such an approach to NATO and the U.S. - a strategic partner: new initiatives, for example, on Black Sea security in a bilateral or multilateral format. We need to think of new forms of cooperation with NATO, and this requires more activity, more flexibility!", President Zurabishvili highlighted in the opening statement of the first parliamentary session on December 11.

When asked, “What kind of initiative can Georgia present to NATO, U.S., that would be in NATO's area of interest, or in America's area of interest?” Ben Hodges, former commander of the US Army in Europe told the Accent: “Georgia must do all it can, regardless of what NATO is doing, if it wants to protect its sovereignty”.

As Hodges stated, there are a number of issues, which should be resolved by the country itself and noted that "NATO membership doesn’t magically solve these issues”.

“It is long past time for a serious national debate in Georgia about its national security concept, about what is required to build strong societal resilience; a whole of government to defense to making Georgia appear “indigestible” to the Kremlin, as a means of deterring further Russian aggression. I know the military understands this, but I don’t think the whole government actually does understand it. It will take time and effort to explain this to the population, to build support for this.

I am anxious to see what Georgia has done to learn the right lessons from its experiences in 2008. Have leaders gone out on the ground and done what we call a “staff ride” or even a “terrain walk” over the ground where the Russian Federation forces last attacked to do an after action review to see what could have been done better? And then take those steps. Getting Javelins is an improvement in capability, but has the Ministry of Defense thought thru the entire concept of defense of how these systems would be employed and where? Have obstacle plans been developed, ammunition prepared, etc?

NATO membership doesn’t magically solve these things. Coping American systems or buying American equipment alone won’t solve this.

Look what happened to Armenian forces in Nagorno – Karabakh. They had ample Russian-provided equipment, but they were poorly trained and disciplined, lacked an effective mobilization program, lacked intelligence about the Azeri capabilities and plan, and were rapidly destroyed,” Hodges told the Accent.

“Georgia’s government must take a serious approach to this. the superb soldiers of the Georgian Armed Forces deserve this”, he added.