Vakhtang Kapanadze
Major General (Ret.) Vakhtang Kapanadze is the head of the Defense and Security Center.
He served as Georgia’s Deputy Defense Minister from 1990 to 1991, after which he was appointed Chief of Staff of the Afghan War Veteran’s Battalion and the Special Reconnaissance Battalion (1991-1992). Between 1993 and 1999, he was Head of the Combat Reconnaissance/Intelligence branch of Main Intelligence Department. Other positions held include Commander of 11th Motorized Brigade, Chief of J-2 Department of General Staff, Chief of Staff of the Rapid Reaction Forces, Chief of General Staff of Georgia (2004-2005), Military Adviser to the President of Georgia (2005-2006). MG Kapanadze was appointed Georgia’s Envoy Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Poland in 2007, a position he held until 2008, when Russia –Georgia war broke out. From 2008 to 2012 he served as Deputy Head of Foreign Intelligence Service of Georgia. Between 2013 and 2016, MG Kapanadze served as the Georgian Armed Forces’ Chief of General Staff/GEO CHOD. He was appointed Georgia’s Military representative to NATO and EU in 2017, a position he held until 2020. Currently Vakhtang Kapanadze is the deputy director-general of Military Advanced Technologies Research, Development and Production Center FDI – DELTA, Head of the Defense and Security Directorate of the analytical center GeoCase, Professor of the Caucasian International University of Tbilisi.
Vakhtang Kapanadze is an alumnus of the College of Strategic Studies and Defense Economics at the George C. Marshal Center in Germany, attended the Ukraine Armed Forces National Academy’s Operational-Tactical Faculty (Gold Medal) (1998-1999), and also the U.S. Army War College (2002-2003).
In 2014 he was awarded the academic degree of the Doctor of Military Science. He is author of a number of publications and researches in defense sphere.
