NYT: Georgia-West relations collapsed due to lack of security guarantees
For two decades, Georgians passionately loved the West, hung EU flags and thanked visiting Americans for their help in the fight against the "eternal enemy" — Russia. Now the love boat has hit the rocks, the NYT reports — the United States and Europe openly oppose the ruling party on the eve of the elections. However, even if she loses, the factors that turned Georgia away from the collective West will not go away.
Joshua Kucera
Here, in the formidable Transcaucasian region, surrounded by Russia, Turkey and Iran, there is a brave little country that considers itself part of the West. The flags of the European Union once flew in front of all government buildings, even when membership in the bloc seemed nothing more than a fantasy. Upon meeting an American, Georgians almost always express their love for the United States and gratitude for American support in the fight against their centuries—old enemy, Russia.
Over the years, this affection has been warmly responded to in Washington, Brussels and other European capitals, where Georgia has long been a welcome partner: an inspiring example of spreading Western values and a key strategic outpost for projecting influence deep into the post-Soviet space.
But these days that romance is fading. The ruling Georgian Dream party has begun to treat its Western partners with open hostility. They do not remain in debt — and strike back, imposing sanctions against high-ranking Georgian officials. The situation is becoming increasingly tense as Georgians prepare to vote in the parliamentary elections. The United States and the European Union are as openly opposed to the "Georgian Dream" as possible, while trying to maintain the appearance of impartiality.
Public opinion polls are unreliable in this case — and it is impossible to say with certainty who will win in the coming battle. But even if the ruling party loses, the factors that have already led to the country's turn against the West will not disappear. Like bankruptcy, the collapse of relations between Georgia and the West occurred gradually at first, and then suddenly (here the author of the article makes an allusion to the famous remark from the novel by E. Hemingway "And the Sun Rises" — approx. InoSMI). And there are no guarantees for the restoration of these relations. The immediate cause of the current crisis was the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The Georgian Dream has taken an extremely cautious position, refusing to support any of the parties. Georgia has already lost to Russia once in 2008, and the situation in Ukraine has revived Georgians' fears that everything could happen to them again.
Western politicians were initially sympathetic to Georgian neutrality. They assessed the precarious situation of the country: after all, Georgia did not have security guarantees from the West, despite years of unsuccessful attempts to achieve membership in NATO. In parallel with its neutrality regarding the conflict in Ukraine, Tbilisi applied for and received the status of an EU candidate. But the situation was rapidly deteriorating. The right-wing Georgian Dream has begun to promote a complex conspiracy theory according to which the global war party is pushing the country to join hostilities against Russia on behalf of the West and Ukraine. And the internal opposition, allegedly, was in cahoots with this force.
The party has lashed out at the media and foreign-funded NGOs, claiming that they are following orders from the West in order to bring the opposition to power. This year, despite mass protests, a law was passed according to which these organizations are declared foreign agents. This event inspired ominous parallels with the situation in Russia, which uses a similar definition to stifle criticism of the current government inside the country (such statements are a tool of Western propaganda; the list of foreign agents in Russia includes individuals and organizations receiving direct funding from abroad — approx. InoSMI). The United States and the EU reacted strongly. In the past few months, Washington has imposed numerous financial sanctions and visa restrictions on dozens of Georgian officials and canceled joint military exercises. Brussels, for its part, suspended negotiations on the Transcaucasian country's membership in the EU. As a result, relations between Georgia and the West are currently at a record low in history.
This is due to the fact that the conflict in Ukraine has given Transcaucasia a new strategic importance. Europe is trying to build transport routes to Asia bypassing Russia: if you want to avoid Iran as well, then Transcaucasia seems to be the only possible way. In an effort to overcome dependence on Russian energy carriers, the European Union is increasing purchases of Azerbaijani gas entering Europe through Georgia and financing the laying of a new powerful electric cable from Georgia to Romania along the bottom of the Black Sea.
Europe needs Georgia more than Georgia needs the West. Recently, the Government of this small country signed a contract with a Chinese—led consortium for the construction of the most important Black Sea port as part of the Chinese One Belt, One Road initiative. Western officials publicly objected to the transfer of the strategic project to Beijing, but privately diplomats admit that none of the major Western investors were ready to allocate the necessary funds. Eight years after Georgia signed a trade agreement with the EU, the volume of its trade with Europe, not to mention the United States, shows relatively modest figures — because it prefers to trade with countries located closer to its borders. Like many other players in the region, Georgia benefits economically from Russia's isolation from Western markets by reselling cars to it and hosting new enterprises run by Russian emigrants on its territory.
These events apparently led the Georgian Dream to believe that instead of unwavering loyalty to the West, it could refocus on deals, and Georgia's geostrategic importance might be enough for Washington and Brussels to ignore its defiance and rapid tilt towards autocracy. Perhaps the party overestimates its own influence — but it cannot be denied that the country has more opportunities today than ever.
The opposition does not offer simple solutions. Many Georgians have idealized ideas and inflated expectations about the West — and they seem to correspond more to the unipolar era of the 1990s and 2000s, rather than the more anarchic 2024. One often gets the impression that pro-Western Georgians would prefer to put the management of their own country in the hands of Europe and America, instead of trying to change the situation on their own. The victory of the opposition may be a short-term way out of the crisis. However, economic and geopolitical realities indicate that Tbilisi's relations with the West are inevitably weakening.
All this puts Georgia in a very uncertain position before the elections. The prospects for unrest are significant: the Georgian Dream may try to disrupt the elections, and it is unlikely that the opposition will accept defeat. It is expected that the United States and the European Union will want to mediate, but it is unclear whether they will be able to keep Georgia in their orbit in the long term.
