Has this little country cracked the code of post-Soviet politics?
Relations between Georgia and the West – which were already difficult – took a new turn last week when the leader of the ruling Georgian Dream party said that funding of the opposition by the United States and the European Union amounted to “crossing red lines.”
With an election on the horizon, Bidzina Ivanishvili, widely considered the de facto leader of the party, and its honorary chairman, accused Western states of interfering in the country’s internal affairs. The head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau added that Western financial support for some non-governmental organizations amounted to non-transparent funding of the same opposition.
The most amusing thing about these statements is that the schemes described by the Georgian officials are the most common and universally accepted method of US influence on political processes abroad. It is only in the last 30 years that no one has dared to speak openly about this fact in countries that claim to be part of the ‘community of liberal democracies’. And Georgia is one of those. Especially given that nobody there has abandoned the goal of joining NATO and the EU.
The Georgian authorities are thus taking the liberty of directly contradicting the basic world order imposed on everyone by the Americans. Which is that the laws and norms of the UN apply to everyone except to the US itself. And since this case is not taking place in the distant Amazon, but in a neighboring country to Russia, the nature of the Georgian phenomenon – and its prospects – cannot fail to pique our interest.
For now, Georgia is not an important enough prize for Russia’s main Western adversaries to spend significant resources on. But times are changing. And there is no need to delude ourselves that the US and EU won’t act more decisively in the future. Including resorting to their main tool: the violent overthrow of political regimes they deem undesirable.
That’s why the main concern of Georgian politicians – and the same applies in Russia – right now is to build an effective state that controls its security agencies and is able to finance its main developmental challenges without resorting to significant external borrowing.
That’s because another tool of the West is to weaponize the indebtedness of countries to so-called international financial institutions. Most notably, the World Bank and the IMF, whose political objectives are determined by Washington.
In the coming months and even years, Georgia, and its people, will have to tread a very thorny and risky path without compromising the security and very existence of their nation. They could well be successful, because they have certain advantages.
The first is a relatively high level of political awareness and the existence of a tradition of statehood. The Georgian people have lived through various periods of history, including under Persian and Turkish rule. But even under these conditions, local statehood was kept alive. In this respect, Georgia can be compared, for example, to Uzbekistan, where the self-government of the Bukhara Emirate was preserved until its defeat by the Bolsheviks in 1920. And it certainly has an advantage over the former Baltic republics or the territory of Ukraine, where there has never been such a tradition. Such a historical path allows for the accumulation of experience and a certain wisdom that can even compensate for the stereotypical southern temperament.
Second, Georgia was the least fortunate of the former Soviet republics where nationalists came to power after the USSR’s collapse. It almost immediately lost control of two regions – Abkhazia and South Ossetia – and in 2008 came into direct conflict with Russia. The lessons seem to have been learned. A few years later, the regime in Tbilisi that sparked the latter conflict fell, and the Georgian Dream party, led by the pragmatic businessman Ivanishvili, came to power.
Foreign policy gradually began to correct itself in the direction of common sense and an understanding of the country’s place on the map. At the same time, the contradictions between Tbilisi and its Western patrons began to grow. Now these relations are at their lowest point since independent Georgia appeared in 1991.
The ‘Georgia First’ policy is at odds with what Washington wants. The US has demanded total self-sacrifice from the countries of the former Soviet Union in stoking conflict with Russia. Tbilisi, however, switched to pragmatic policies which serve its own interests.
It should be noted that Armenia and the Baltic republics have been much less fortunate. In the first case, the early days of independence were a period of foreign-policy victories that eventually led to severe disappointments. In the case of the Baltics, elite nationalism was fully supported by the West and flourished, especially under the hypothetical ‘security umbrella’ of NATO. The Georgian state, on the other hand, had to grow up the hard way.
Finally, Georgia has a relatively good geographical position at the crossroads of trade routes between major economies. In the early days of independence, Tbilisi hoped to sell its territory for the US to use as a military base for missions against Russia and Iran. Now the Georgian authorities are using their geography for peaceful purposes, becoming a kind of bridge between Russia, Turkey and Western Europe.
Proof of this is the growing volume of German exports to Georgia. According to the latest data from the statistical services of the Federal Republic of Germany, these have tripled since February 2002 - from 30 million to 90 million euros per month - dominated by machinery and other equipment.
At the same time, Georgia is militarily and strategically far enough from NATO’s main bridgeheads in Eastern Europe and more difficult to access than the Baltics or Ukraine. For their part, the neighboring Turkish authorities have no interest in having another flashpoint on their doorstep, instead of a mediator and investment destination.
Capitalizing on these advantages, the Georgian leadership have taken it upon themselves – and the population, whose lives have visibly improved in recent years – to determine the fate of the country. Linked to these efforts has been the biggest flashpoint between Tbilisi and the West in recent months: the “Foreign Influence Transparency Law,” adopted in early June, which requires organizations that receive funding from abroad to register as foreign agents.
The law’s passage was accompanied by months of protests, visits by Western European officials and a condemnatory EU resolution. Parliament even had to override a presidential veto to make the final decision. The main thing that has become clear in the course of this whole campaign is that the Georgian government is quite capable of controlling its own security agencies. Considering what happened in Ukraine in February 2014 and the Belarusian experience of 2020, this can be seen as one of the most serious achievements of the ruling party.
In October this year, Georgia will hold parliamentary elections in which all the people, not only the pro-Western street mob, will have the final say. In a way, Georgia is an example of how it is possible not to have particularly warm feelings towards Russia while at the same time not giving Moscow any cause for concern. The latter is the main thing we want from our closest neighbors.
It is still unclear how long this independent stance can last and if Russia can encourage the rest of its neighbors to be similarly predictable in the future. At present, Georgia’s stance is resented in the West but welcomed by Moscow. Meanwhile, the status of breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia – both recognized as independent states by Russia – has the potential to cause problems in the future.
This article was first published by ‘Vzglyad’ newspaper and was translated and edited by the RT team.
