---
title: "Will Georgia Ever Join NATO? Inside the Oligarch, the Occupation, and the Stalled Bid"
description: "On paper, Georgia is one of the most Western-leaning states in the former Soviet Union. A one-time victim of Russian aggression, the South Caucasus nation today revels in its pro-West identity. Its people overwhelmingly want to join the European Union, and Article 78 of its constitution compels the government to seek NATO membership.\n\nOn a practical level, the links with the Alliance are already strong. Tbilisi's soldiers train alongside NATO instructors and have taken part in its missions. If any country was going to be a shoo-in for membership, it would seem to be Georgia.\n\nOr would it? Despite record-high public support for joining, Georgia's ruling party appears to be going out of its way to sabotage relations not just with NATO, but with the entire West. At a time when Russian missiles fall on Ukrainian cities, Georgia's prime minister repeats Kremlin talking points. The government accuses NATO of trying to open a new front in the war. In parliament, the ruling party systematically dismantles the country's checks and balances — a surefire way of blocking both EU and NATO accession.\n\nHow did overwhelmingly pro-West Georgia arrive at a moment in which its own government seems to be sabotaging its stated aspirations? This is a journey into the murky waters of Georgian politics, and the question of whether Tbilisi can ever fulfill its long-declared goal of joining NATO. The honest answer, as of mid-2026, is that the road has rarely looked steeper.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- Article 78 of Georgia's constitution legally compels the government to pursue both EU and NATO membership, and a 2018 amendment instructs leaders to \"take all measures\" toward full integration into both institutions.\n- Public support is overwhelming: roughly 80 percent of Georgians back EU membership, and a March 2023 poll found 73 percent in favor of joining NATO against only 13 percent opposed.\n- Georgia has been one of the Alliance's closest non-member partners — training troops at the NATO-Georgia Joint Training and Evaluation Center, contributing per capita more forces than any other non-member to the Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, and serving as an Enhanced Opportunities Partner.\n- Since Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the ruling Georgian Dream party has moved closer to Moscow, increasing trade with Russia and blaming NATO enlargement for the war.\n- Analysts trace Georgia's pro-Russia turn to billionaire oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, founder of Georgian Dream, who is widely described as the informal ruler of the country despite officially leaving politics in 2021.\n- NATO's reluctance likely stems less from democratic backsliding than from the strategic problem of Abkhazia and South Ossetia — roughly 20 percent of Georgian territory under Russian occupation — and the difficulty of defending a small, geographically isolated nation.\n- Despite the obstacles, around three-quarters of Georgians still want to join the Alliance, leaving a long-term tension between the government's course and the will of its people.\n\n## Euro-Atlantic Dreams\n\nNestled on the eastern shores of the Black Sea, the tiny, mountainous nation of Georgia is well off the radar for most Americans and Europeans. At a mere 69,700 square kilometers, and home to just 3.7 million people, the country is semi-invisible in the West. Mention it offhand to most people, and they will assume you are talking about Georgia the US state.\n\nYet while this one-time Soviet republic may not frequently intrude on the minds of those living in NATO countries, the same is not true in reverse. For decades now, Tbilisi has been officially trying to join both the Alliance and other Western institutions like the EU. Article 78 of the Georgian Constitution instructs the government to pursue membership of both, with a 2018 amendment insisting the nation's leaders \"take all measures … to ensure the full integration of Georgia into the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.\"\n\nAmong ordinary Georgians, too, there is genuine passion for both projects. While joining the EU is more popular overall, with around 80 percent of Georgians supporting the idea, NATO membership is likewise viewed favorably. A March 2023 poll found 73 percent of the public were pro-joining the Alliance, while only 13 percent were against.\n\nIn many ways, this only reflects what has been an ongoing process since the early 2000s. Over the decades, NATO and Georgia have built up so many ties that Tbilisi appears closer to the Alliance than even many member states. Since 2015, for example, the NATO-Georgia Joint Training and Evaluation Center at Krtsanisi Military Base has been responsible for training Tbilisi's troops. During the Alliance's Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, Georgia committed more of its forces — per capita — than any other non-member state.\n\nIn diplomatic engagement, too, Tbilisi is probably cozier than any other non-member not called Ukraine. An Enhanced Opportunities Partner, Georgia has, according to the Georgian outlet Civil, \"hosted the North Atlantic Council five times, and the NATO Military Committee four times\" — a degree of access the outlet describes as \"unprecedented for a non-member of NATO.\" On top of that, the South Caucasus nation is also the recipient of the Substantial NATO-Georgia Package, a tranche of military aid intended to keep Tbilisi's forces strong and interoperable with the Alliance's.\n\nIf membership were a contest of enthusiasm, Georgia would be the determined finalist absolutely set on making itself the perfect match. And yet, despite all this, NATO membership for Georgia looks further away than perhaps it has ever been. While Ukraine's potential accession is a live talking point in Alliance capitals — cheered on by places like Ankara and Vilnius, fretted over in Berlin and Washington — Georgia's candidacy seems to be on ice, perhaps for the foreseeable future. What pushed relations between these partners into such a deep freeze requires a quick detour through Georgia's post-independence history.\n\n## An Era of Instability\n\nWhile many of the nations that split off from the USSR in 1991 managed to do so peacefully, Georgia was one of the unlucky few that immediately plunged into conflict. As a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, Georgia had also been home to a couple of second-tier autonomous republics, as well as the autonomous oblast of South Ossetia. In the Soviet system, these regions existed to give some semblance of local control to ethnic minorities. In Georgia's case, this included the Abkhaz people and the Ossetians.\n\nWhen the USSR imploded and the major republics declared independence, some of these autonomous regions tried to do the same. In Georgia, Moldova, Russia, and Azerbaijan, separatist movements all tried to create brand-new tiny states — states that existed on land the newly independent countries felt belonged to them. The predictable result was war.\n\nFor its first few years as an independent country, Georgia was mired in conflict. Those conflicts ended not with victory for Tbilisi, but with two de facto — if mostly unrecognized — states occupying chunks of Georgian land. On the Black Sea coast, Abkhazia controlled about half the nation's shoreline. In the north, South Ossetia clung to the mountains separating Georgia from Russia. Although the fighting had stopped in both regions by 1994, no lasting peace would be found. It would be these frozen conflicts, more than anything, that would come to define Georgia's next decade and a half.\n\nAt the same time all this was happening, another story was unfolding — Georgia's journey toward the West. As early as 1994, Tbilisi had joined NATO's Partnership for Peace. By 2002, President Eduard Shevardnadze was promising \"to knock on NATO's door\" as the Alliance enlarged. But it would be with Shevardnadze's downfall in the 2003 Rose Revolution that the process really picked up steam. With the classically Soviet figure of Shevardnadze gone, space had appeared for a brand-new form of leadership — one that was bombastically pro-West.\n\n## Saakashvili and the Bucharest Trap\n\nNo Georgian political figure was perhaps as bombastic as Mikheil Saakashvili. If newspapers politely describe certain figures as \"colorful,\" Saakashvili was like an explosion in a paint factory, a man of such singular personality that he dominated Georgian politics for nearly a decade.\n\nAs president, Saakashvili's goal was to drag his nation kicking and screaming into NATO. In 2008, he organized — and won — a nationwide referendum on joining the Alliance, a move intended to send a firm signal ahead of NATO's meeting in Bucharest that year. Along with Ukraine, the hope was that Georgia would be granted a Membership Action Plan, or MAP: a clear roadmap leading to shelter under the Alliance's nuclear umbrella.\n\nIn this, Saakashvili was backed by the United States. But, as many will remember from NATO's more recent troubles inviting in Sweden, just having Washington in your corner is not enough. Every single other member must agree for a new country to join. And in 2008, Germany and France were absolutely not in the mood to admit Tbilisi or Kyiv. The result was an infamous declaration in which the Alliance basically said: sure, you can join one day — just do not ask us when, or how, or what you need to do, or anything else.\n\nTo call this the worst of both worlds would be a planet-sized understatement. The agreement that Georgia would one day join NATO sent Vladimir Putin into a fury. At the same time, the lack of clear commitments failed to boost Tbilisi's security. As Chatham House policy expert Orysia Lutsevych much later told Reuters, \"The Bucharest summit left a lot of bad aftertaste and actually created the strategic ambiguity … the permanent NATO waiting room for Ukraine and Georgia.\" It was a waiting room Putin was determined to ensure they never left.\n\nJust four months after the Bucharest summit, war broke out between Russia and Georgia. The short version is that separatists in South Ossetia shelled Georgia, so Georgia sent in the army — only to realize it had all been a trap when Russian armor swept across the border. In five days of fighting, 850 people were killed, 35,000 Georgians were driven from their homes, and Russian tanks came within kilometers of Tbilisi. Effectively the entire Georgian navy and air force were destroyed.\n\nWhen the shooting stopped, twenty percent of Georgian territory — comprising Abkhazia and South Ossetia — remained under permanent Russian occupation. It has stayed that way ever since. For many Georgians, their swift, painful defeat in 2008 made joining NATO an even more urgent priority.\n\nEven after Saakashvili's party lost power in 2012 — with Saakashvili himself stepping down as president in 2013 — the drive west remained government policy. It was seen as the only possible security guarantee for a tiny nation on Russia's doorstep. Or so the thinking used to go. Because, as the last year and a half has shown, a fundamental shift has come over the government. A shift that has done what Russian tanks alone never managed to do: make Tbilisi joining NATO start to seem like an impossible dream.\n\n## Sabotage, With a Smile\n\nGoing by official statements alone, you would think that Georgia today was still tracing its old, pro-NATO path. In April 2023, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili of the ruling Georgian Dream party met Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and told him, \"Georgia's Euro-Atlantic aspiration remains our top foreign policy priority.\" Within the nation's institutions, the official line is that a 12-step reform plan to boost Tbilisi's EU candidacy is already underway — one that would likewise have a positive impact on NATO membership.\n\nBut this is merely the surface detail: the smiling, pro-Western face Georgian Dream presents to the world. Start to peel away the makeup, and what is underneath looks very different.\n\nIn the 18 months since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the government has been growing closer to Russia. From a Western perspective, disturbingly close. Not only has Tbilisi refused to join sanctions, it has actually increased trade with its former overlord. According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, \"In 2022, Georgia's exports to Russia increased by 6.8 percent to $652 million, while imports soared by 79 percent to $1.8 billion: the highest level for the past sixteen years.\"\n\nAt the same time, Georgian Dream has been desperately sending signals to Putin to suggest the party is on his side. About a month after his meeting with Stoltenberg, Prime Minister Garibashvili sat before a security conference in Bratislava and blamed NATO for the war in Ukraine. \"One of the main reasons [for the war] was NATO,\" he said. \"NATO enlargement … one of the reasons was Ukraine's will and determination to become a member of NATO. And so, therefore, we see the consequences.\"\n\nIt should go without saying, but trash-talking a club you want to join is not a good way to become a member of that club. Yet Georgian Dream is routinely trash-talking NATO with all the gusto of a professional wrestler taunting his opponent. In the immediate aftermath of Russia's full-scale invasion, Open Caucasus Media analyzed the statements being made by party chairman Irakli Kobakhidze. Over five months, Kobakhidze made nine comments critical of Russia, compared to 26 critical of Ukraine, and nearly 60 about the West.\n\nThese are not isolated events. Multiple high-ranking members of Georgian Dream have repeatedly accused both NATO and the EU of trying \"to drag Georgia into the war against Russia.\" The result of these outbursts has been to drive Tbilisi further from both institutions. The NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia declared of Georgia's behavior, \"We are concerned, as an Alliance and the Allies themselves.\"\n\nMeanwhile, the Guardian reports that Prime Minister Garibashvili has picked fights with the European Parliament, accusing them of peddling LGBTQ+ propaganda, while his defense minister calls liberalism a threat to the nation's security. If you pay attention to European news, you might be thinking this sounds like Georgian Dream are deliberately channeling Viktor Orbán — almost as if the spirit of the Hungarian autocrat has somehow possessed Tbilisi. In this, you might be mostly right.\n\n## A Deliberate Strategy\n\nForeign Policy spoke with Eto Buziashvili at the Atlantic Council, who suggested all this rhetoric was part of a deliberate strategy: a way of ensuring Georgia will never join NATO or the EU, without the politically costly risk of just coming out and saying they are not interested.\n\nBy intentionally pushing the EU's buttons by mimicking Orbán, Georgian Dream knows it is torpedoing its bid to join the bloc. Likewise, declaring NATO started the Ukraine war is pretty much guaranteed to anger the entire Alliance. Or, as Buziashvili put it: \"It appears that backsliding of democracy, failed judiciary reforms, political prosecution, assault on free media and pro-democracy activists, and attacks on freedom of speech [are done] intentionally to prevent Georgia from becoming part of the Western institutions.\"\n\nAs that list suggests, the plot goes beyond merely badmouthing the West. In the last couple of years, Georgian Dream has been executing a power grab, stacking the judiciary to such an extent that the US recently sanctioned four senior judges for corruption. The party has also imprisoned former president Mikheil Saakashvili on what his supporters call trumped-up charges, and may even be slowly poisoning him to death — at least according to those supporters. If nothing else, they appear to be denying him adequate medical care.\n\nTaken together, these comments and actions are the perfect way to sabotage the pro-West aspirations of Georgia's people. They throw down a roadblock future governments will struggle mightily to overcome.\n\nAt this stage, you might be feeling a little confused. Russia attacked these guys 15 years ago, and still occupies a fifth of their country — but they secretly do not want to ever join NATO? How does that make sense? To answer that, we only need to use a single word: oligarchy. More to the point: a single oligarch, around whom everything in Georgia turns. An oligarch desperate to bend an entire nation to his whims.\n\n## The Man Behind the Curtain\n\nIf you want to understand modern Georgia, there is no better way than first understanding its most powerful man: Bidzina Ivanishvili. The founder of Georgian Dream, Ivanishvili is also a man of staggering wealth in a country where the average monthly wage clocks in at around $650. With over $5 billion to his name, Ivanishvili's wealth is, according to the Guardian, \"equivalent to more than a quarter of Georgia's GDP.\"\n\nNot that his power only derives from his money. Despite retiring as prime minister in 2013 after only a year in the post — and leaving politics altogether in 2021 — Ivanishvili still retains a vice-like grip on the ruling Georgian Dream party. The current prime minister, for example, is a former employee of his construction firm. The head of security worked in several of his businesses. The interior minister started out as Ivanishvili's head bodyguard. According to Foreign Policy, every single current minister was once one of his personal aides. Speaking to the Guardian, the vice-president of the Georgian Institute for Strategic Studies declared, \"We are basically a one-man-dominated political system, where the oligarch Ivanishvili is basically fine-tuning everything.\"\n\nAnd what Ivanishvili wants to do right now, it seems, is fine-tune his nation into becoming a supporter of Russia. Although born in Georgia during the Soviet era, Ivanishvili made most of his fortune in Moscow. Specifically, he was one of the oligarchs who took control of major state industries in the wild days of 1990s privatization, before selling his accumulated business interests off for a killing.\n\nWhere that wealth is stored today is a matter of some controversy. Ivanishvili's name has cropped up in almost every major financial investigation of the last few years, from the Panama Papers to the Pandora Papers. But some suspect at least part of it is still tied up in Russia, where the Kremlin tightly controls who has access to what. All of which may explain the distinctly pro-Russia direction Ivanishvili has recently been tiptoeing in. According to Foreign Policy, \"Experts place the blame for Georgia's hard turn toward Russia with billionaire oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili.\"\n\nIt is worth pointing out that Ivanishvili denies all of this. He denies he is pro-Russian, or that he is even still active in his nation's politics — though he is not convincing many people. Back in 2022, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for sanctions on Ivanishvili, a resolution that highlighted his \"destructive role\" in Georgia's economy and political life. Others have gone even further. Batu Kutelia, a former Georgian ambassador to the United States, has claimed, \"Ivanishvili is the informal ruler of Georgia and a Russian ally.\"\n\nFor most Georgians, this must be a depressing thought: that you live in an overwhelmingly pro-West country, but because of a single oligarch, all 3.7 million of you are being dragged ever-deeper into Vladimir Putin's ice-cold, suffocating embrace. Right now, the opposition is trying to fight back against Ivanishvili's and Georgian Dream's anti-NATO stances. But they simply hold too few seats in parliament to effect any change, at least until the next elections in 2024.\n\nStill, it would be a mistake to reduce the entire story to one man's reach. Let us assume for a moment that, aside from just money, Georgian Dream has rational reasons for its sudden new, anti-Western course. In that case, what might those reasons be?\n\n## Let Down and Hanging Around\n\nFor many non-NATO nations in Europe, Russia's unprovoked and genocidal attack on Ukraine was a wake-up call as to the Alliance's value. Within months, both Sweden and Finland applied to join. Ukraine, likewise, is pinning its hopes for post-war security on a seat at the table. Even Ireland at least discussed the possibility of joining NATO, a possibility since rejected.\n\nIn Georgia, though, the onslaught seems to have pushed many government officials in the opposite direction. Rather than a security guarantee, many seem to believe taking steps to join the Alliance today would actually put them in increased danger. The basic outline of this idea is that — if Putin really is determined to stop NATO expansion — then Russia would be at its most dangerous in the period between Georgia receiving its Membership Action Plan and actually joining. During that time, Tbilisi would not be covered by NATO's collective defense policy — the famous Article Five that would bring not just most of Europe's armies, but also Uncle Sam running to help. And Georgian officials are worried NATO would not risk war with Russia for a nation not yet a member.\n\nAs one Western diplomat in Georgia told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, \"Where they used to view receiving a Membership Action Plan as a positive step, the prime minister made it clear in Bratislava that maybe his perception is that steps short of actual security guarantees actually increase Georgia's vulnerability.\" This has been exacerbated by a perception in Tbilisi that the West has not done enough to help Ukraine.\n\nIf you are from one of the countries that has poured billions of dollars of equipment into Ukraine to help Kyiv fend off the Russian assault, that might sound a little screwy. Clearly NATO is trying to help drive Russia out as best it can. But that is not how it looks to some in Georgia's government — for whom a Russian invasion is not a mere possibility, but something they have actual, recent experience of.\n\nRight now, were Russia to suddenly strike from its bases in South Ossetia, Georgia would be in existential danger. Unlike Ukraine, where the nation's sheer size meant the city of Kyiv had days to prepare for the arrival of Russian forces, Georgia is such a tiny country that you would not even be able to comfortably watch Oppenheimer before armor was at your front door. According to the Guardian, \"If the Russians did strike from South Ossetia, they could cut Georgia's main east-west highway in a few minutes, and be in Tbilisi within a couple of hours.\"\n\nFrom this perspective, anything other than a concerted NATO drive to expel Russia from Ukraine probably would look underwhelming. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace put it thusly: \"To Tbilisi, Western military aid for Ukraine looks insufficient to end the war, while Russia has succeeded in retaining control of large parts of the country. Georgian officials believe the balance of power is shifting in Russia's favor.\"\n\nFrom this angle of cold calculation, tilting softly towards Russia may be the only rational thing Georgia can do. It is what Victor Kipiani, chairman of the Geocase think tank in Tbilisi, told the New York Times was a \"balancing act\" — an attempt to mollify the angry, giant nation on their doorstep while not completely burning bridges with the West. To put it in extremely simple terms: working with Russia allows the Georgian economy to get fat off increased trade and travel — in other words, a tangible plus. Running for the NATO security umbrella, on the other hand, offers both possible benefits and the potential for nationwide armageddon. As Kipiani told the New York Times, \"The country is a prisoner of its own geography.\"\n\n## Defending the Indefensible?\n\nOf course, there is one set of actors in all this we have not really heard from yet, with its own opinions on the pluses and minuses of Georgia's security situation: NATO itself.\n\nFor all the focus in NATO capitals on Georgia's democratic backsliding, the truth is that this may just be a red herring — a bucket of pungent seafood intended to distract from the real issues. We can deduce this because the Alliance has a track record of letting in or tolerating nations with less than stellar forms of governance. Greece, for example, remained a member even after the colonels established their military dictatorship. Today, autocratic regimes like Turkey and Hungary are still in the club despite their questionable commitment to democracy.\n\nMore to the point, NATO has recently admitted new members with problematic politics. In 2017, Montenegro entered the Alliance; followed in 2020 by North Macedonia. In 2021, Transparency International ranked both nations far behind Georgia for corruption. Given all that, it seems unlikely that rule of law is the only thing worrying NATO's members about Georgia's bid. So where might the real problem lie?\n\nThe best guess: in the two separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Over its history, NATO has occasionally admitted states with disputed territory. West Germany, for example, joined back when the country's east was still locked away behind the Iron Curtain. Likewise, the Alliance has a few member states with territories its security guarantee does not cover. Guam and Hawaii are both explicitly excluded from America's Article Five protection, as is Réunion Island from France's.\n\nStill, admitting a state with 20 percent of its territory under Russian occupation would be a massive step. Even if the Alliance and Georgia both agreed that Abkhazia and South Ossetia were not covered by NATO's security guarantee, there would simply be too high a risk of confrontation with Russia. Given how careful NATO has been about not getting dragged into the Ukraine war so far, it is understandable members might not want to run the risk of antagonizing Moscow in the South Caucasus.\n\nEspecially considering how hard Georgia would be to defend. One massive advantage Ukraine has enjoyed in its war is the sheer amount of border it shares with NATO countries. Arms and equipment can readily flow in from Poland, Romania, and Slovakia, and could likewise have flowed in from Hungary had Orbán not blocked them. Georgia, on the other hand, borders a single NATO member: Turkey. And that border is relatively short, and covered with mountains. Only two major roads connect Georgia's interior with Turkey. In the event of a conflict, that would create two obvious strategic chokepoints for Russia to attack — potentially making resupply difficult.\n\nCombined with the short distance between Russian forces in South Ossetia and the capital of Tbilisi, you can start to see why NATO members might consider Georgia just too difficult to defend. Or, as War on the Rocks put it in 2021, \"Defending a country … as remote as Georgia puts in doubt NATO's ability to deploy the substantial in-theater and backup forces and equipment this would require. It also puts in doubt America's willingness to greatly enhance its existing deterrence initiative and not least carry the financial burden.\"\n\nOf course, the counter-argument is that putting Georgia's NATO bid on ice because of fear of Russia effectively hands Vladimir Putin a veto over Tbilisi's foreign policy. It also raises the question of whether the Alliance truly has an open-door policy, or if that is just a comforting fiction members tell themselves. Nonetheless, these are real problems NATO must grapple with when deciding whether to admit Georgia — a decision the Alliance has now successfully been putting on hold for 15 years.\n\n## A Firm \"No\" — Or Just \"Not Yet\"?\n\nSo has the headline question been answered with a firm \"no\"? Certainly, there are good reasons to be pessimistic. A ruling party consolidating power, even as it snuggles up close to the Kremlin. A difficult strategic environment. A fear in both Brussels and Tbilisi that starting the process might invite a massive Russian backlash.\n\nYet, for all the matter may seem settled, there are small grounds for optimism, too. Not just in the ongoing military cooperation between NATO and Georgia, but in the people of Georgia themselves. With around three-quarters of Georgians wanting to join the Alliance, it seems reasonable to think their government can only hold them back so long.\n\nSure, it might not be an easy road. But if we truly believe in self-determination for all peoples, then it is hard to see how NATO could ultimately refuse Tbilisi's accession. Because, in Georgia, we have a country that has already suffered 15 years of Russian aggression and hybrid warfare — the only other nation in Europe that has even the remotest idea of how Ukrainians feel right now.\n\nTheir past may have been defined by the colossus on their northern border. But if Georgians get their way, then maybe — just maybe — the future will be defined by something else: by the freedom to choose a new destiny, far from the Kremlin's clutches.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### Does Georgia's constitution require it to seek NATO membership?\n\nYes. Article 78 of the Georgian Constitution instructs the government to pursue membership of both NATO and the EU. A 2018 amendment goes further, insisting the nation's leaders \"take all measures … to ensure the full integration of Georgia into the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.\"\n\n### What happened in the 2008 Russia-Georgia war?\n\nAfter separatists in South Ossetia shelled Georgia, Tbilisi sent in its army, only for Russian armor to sweep across the border. In five days of fighting, 850 people were killed, 35,000 Georgians were driven from their homes, and Russian tanks came within kilometers of Tbilisi. Effectively the entire Georgian navy and air force were destroyed. When it ended, 20 percent of Georgian territory — Abkhazia and South Ossetia — remained under Russian occupation, as it has ever since.\n\n### Who is Bidzina Ivanishvili and why does he matter?\n\nIvanishvili is the billionaire founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party, with over $5 billion to his name — equivalent to more than a quarter of Georgia's GDP. Despite formally leaving politics in 2021, he is widely described as the informal ruler of Georgia. Every current minister was once one of his personal aides, and analysts blame his influence for Georgia's hard turn toward Russia. He made much of his fortune in 1990s Moscow privatization and denies being pro-Russian.\n\n### Why might NATO be reluctant to admit Georgia, beyond democratic backsliding?\n\nNATO has tolerated members with poor governance records — Greece under its colonels, Turkey, and Hungary today — and admitted Montenegro and North Macedonia despite their ranking far behind Georgia on corruption. The real obstacles appear to be the two Russian-occupied regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, comprising 20 percent of Georgian territory, and the difficulty of defending a tiny nation that borders only one NATO member, Turkey, across a short, mountainous frontier.\n\n### Why has Georgia's government grown closer to Russia since 2022?\n\nSince Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Georgian Dream has refused to join sanctions and increased trade with Russia — exports rose 6.8 percent to $652 million and imports soared 79 percent to $1.8 billion in 2022. Officials argue the period between receiving a Membership Action Plan and actually joining would leave Georgia most exposed to Russian attack, without the protection of NATO's Article Five collective defense.\n\n## Sources\n1. \n2. \n3. \n4. \n5. \n6. \n7. \n8. \n9. \n10. \n11. \n12. \n\n"
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On paper, Georgia is one of the most Western-leaning states in the former Soviet Union. A one-time victim of Russian aggression, the South Caucasus nation today revels in its pro-West identity. Its people overwhelmingly want to join the European Union, and Article 78 of its constitution compels the government to seek NATO membership.
On a practical level, the links with the Alliance are already strong. Tbilisi's soldiers train alongside NATO instructors and have taken part in its missions. If any country was going to be a shoo-in for membership, it would seem to be Georgia.
Or would it? Despite record-high public support for joining, Georgia's ruling party appears to be going out of its way to sabotage relations not just with NATO, but with the entire West. At a time when Russian missiles fall on Ukrainian cities, Georgia's prime minister repeats Kremlin talking points. The government accuses NATO of trying to open a new front in the war. In parliament, the ruling party systematically dismantles the country's checks and balances — a surefire way of blocking both EU and NATO accession.
How did overwhelmingly pro-West Georgia arrive at a moment in which its own government seems to be sabotaging its stated aspirations? This is a journey into the murky waters of Georgian politics, and the question of whether Tbilisi can ever fulfill its long-declared goal of joining NATO. The honest answer, as of mid-2026, is that the road has rarely looked steeper.
## Key Takeaways
- Article 78 of Georgia's constitution legally compels the government to pursue both EU and NATO membership, and a 2018 amendment instructs leaders to "take all measures" toward full integration into both institutions.
- Public support is overwhelming: roughly 80 percent of Georgians back EU membership, and a March 2023 poll found 73 percent in favor of joining NATO against only 13 percent opposed.
- Georgia has been one of the Alliance's closest non-member partners — training troops at the NATO-Georgia Joint Training and Evaluation Center, contributing per capita more forces than any other non-member to the Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, and serving as an Enhanced Opportunities Partner.
- Since Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the ruling Georgian Dream party has moved closer to Moscow, increasing trade with Russia and blaming NATO enlargement for the war.
- Analysts trace Georgia's pro-Russia turn to billionaire oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, founder of Georgian Dream, who is widely described as the informal ruler of the country despite officially leaving politics in 2021.
- NATO's reluctance likely stems less from democratic backsliding than from the strategic problem of Abkhazia and South Ossetia — roughly 20 percent of Georgian territory under Russian occupation — and the difficulty of defending a small, geographically isolated nation.
- Despite the obstacles, around three-quarters of Georgians still want to join the Alliance, leaving a long-term tension between the government's course and the will of its people.
## Euro-Atlantic Dreams
Nestled on the eastern shores of the Black Sea, the tiny, mountainous nation of Georgia is well off the radar for most Americans and Europeans. At a mere 69,700 square kilometers, and home to just 3.7 million people, the country is semi-invisible in the West. Mention it offhand to most people, and they will assume you are talking about Georgia the US state.
Yet while this one-time Soviet republic may not frequently intrude on the minds of those living in NATO countries, the same is not true in reverse. For decades now, Tbilisi has been officially trying to join both the Alliance and other Western institutions like the EU. Article 78 of the Georgian Constitution instructs the government to pursue membership of both, with a 2018 amendment insisting the nation's leaders "take all measures … to ensure the full integration of Georgia into the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization."
Among ordinary Georgians, too, there is genuine passion for both projects. While joining the EU is more popular overall, with around 80 percent of Georgians supporting the idea, NATO membership is likewise viewed favorably. A March 2023 poll found 73 percent of the public were pro-joining the Alliance, while only 13 percent were against.
In many ways, this only reflects what has been an ongoing process since the early 2000s. Over the decades, NATO and Georgia have built up so many ties that Tbilisi appears closer to the Alliance than even many member states. Since 2015, for example, the NATO-Georgia Joint Training and Evaluation Center at Krtsanisi Military Base has been responsible for training Tbilisi's troops. During the Alliance's Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, Georgia committed more of its forces — per capita — than any other non-member state.
In diplomatic engagement, too, Tbilisi is probably cozier than any other non-member not called Ukraine. An Enhanced Opportunities Partner, Georgia has, according to the Georgian outlet Civil, "hosted the North Atlantic Council five times, and the NATO Military Committee four times" — a degree of access the outlet describes as "unprecedented for a non-member of NATO." On top of that, the South Caucasus nation is also the recipient of the Substantial NATO-Georgia Package, a tranche of military aid intended to keep Tbilisi's forces strong and interoperable with the Alliance's.
If membership were a contest of enthusiasm, Georgia would be the determined finalist absolutely set on making itself the perfect match. And yet, despite all this, NATO membership for Georgia looks further away than perhaps it has ever been. While Ukraine's potential accession is a live talking point in Alliance capitals — cheered on by places like Ankara and Vilnius, fretted over in Berlin and Washington — Georgia's candidacy seems to be on ice, perhaps for the foreseeable future. What pushed relations between these partners into such a deep freeze requires a quick detour through Georgia's post-independence history.
## An Era of Instability
While many of the nations that split off from the USSR in 1991 managed to do so peacefully, Georgia was one of the unlucky few that immediately plunged into conflict. As a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, Georgia had also been home to a couple of second-tier autonomous republics, as well as the autonomous oblast of South Ossetia. In the Soviet system, these regions existed to give some semblance of local control to ethnic minorities. In Georgia's case, this included the Abkhaz people and the Ossetians.
When the USSR imploded and the major republics declared independence, some of these autonomous regions tried to do the same. In Georgia, Moldova, Russia, and Azerbaijan, separatist movements all tried to create brand-new tiny states — states that existed on land the newly independent countries felt belonged to them. The predictable result was war.
For its first few years as an independent country, Georgia was mired in conflict. Those conflicts ended not with victory for Tbilisi, but with two de facto — if mostly unrecognized — states occupying chunks of Georgian land. On the Black Sea coast, Abkhazia controlled about half the nation's shoreline. In the north, South Ossetia clung to the mountains separating Georgia from Russia. Although the fighting had stopped in both regions by 1994, no lasting peace would be found. It would be these frozen conflicts, more than anything, that would come to define Georgia's next decade and a half.
At the same time all this was happening, another story was unfolding — Georgia's journey toward the West. As early as 1994, Tbilisi had joined NATO's Partnership for Peace. By 2002, President Eduard Shevardnadze was promising "to knock on NATO's door" as the Alliance enlarged. But it would be with Shevardnadze's downfall in the 2003 Rose Revolution that the process really picked up steam. With the classically Soviet figure of Shevardnadze gone, space had appeared for a brand-new form of leadership — one that was bombastically pro-West.
## Saakashvili and the Bucharest Trap
No Georgian political figure was perhaps as bombastic as Mikheil Saakashvili. If newspapers politely describe certain figures as "colorful," Saakashvili was like an explosion in a paint factory, a man of such singular personality that he dominated Georgian politics for nearly a decade.
As president, Saakashvili's goal was to drag his nation kicking and screaming into NATO. In 2008, he organized — and won — a nationwide referendum on joining the Alliance, a move intended to send a firm signal ahead of NATO's meeting in Bucharest that year. Along with Ukraine, the hope was that Georgia would be granted a Membership Action Plan, or MAP: a clear roadmap leading to shelter under the Alliance's nuclear umbrella.
In this, Saakashvili was backed by the United States. But, as many will remember from NATO's more recent troubles inviting in Sweden, just having Washington in your corner is not enough. Every single other member must agree for a new country to join. And in 2008, Germany and France were absolutely not in the mood to admit Tbilisi or Kyiv. The result was an infamous declaration in which the Alliance basically said: sure, you can join one day — just do not ask us when, or how, or what you need to do, or anything else.
To call this the worst of both worlds would be a planet-sized understatement. The agreement that Georgia would one day join NATO sent Vladimir Putin into a fury. At the same time, the lack of clear commitments failed to boost Tbilisi's security. As Chatham House policy expert Orysia Lutsevych much later told Reuters, "The Bucharest summit left a lot of bad aftertaste and actually created the strategic ambiguity … the permanent NATO waiting room for Ukraine and Georgia." It was a waiting room Putin was determined to ensure they never left.
Just four months after the Bucharest summit, war broke out between Russia and Georgia. The short version is that separatists in South Ossetia shelled Georgia, so Georgia sent in the army — only to realize it had all been a trap when Russian armor swept across the border. In five days of fighting, 850 people were killed, 35,000 Georgians were driven from their homes, and Russian tanks came within kilometers of Tbilisi. Effectively the entire Georgian navy and air force were destroyed.
When the shooting stopped, twenty percent of Georgian territory — comprising Abkhazia and South Ossetia — remained under permanent Russian occupation. It has stayed that way ever since. For many Georgians, their swift, painful defeat in 2008 made joining NATO an even more urgent priority.
Even after Saakashvili's party lost power in 2012 — with Saakashvili himself stepping down as president in 2013 — the drive west remained government policy. It was seen as the only possible security guarantee for a tiny nation on Russia's doorstep. Or so the thinking used to go. Because, as the last year and a half has shown, a fundamental shift has come over the government. A shift that has done what Russian tanks alone never managed to do: make Tbilisi joining NATO start to seem like an impossible dream.
## Sabotage, With a Smile
Going by official statements alone, you would think that Georgia today was still tracing its old, pro-NATO path. In April 2023, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili of the ruling Georgian Dream party met Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and told him, "Georgia's Euro-Atlantic aspiration remains our top foreign policy priority." Within the nation's institutions, the official line is that a 12-step reform plan to boost Tbilisi's EU candidacy is already underway — one that would likewise have a positive impact on NATO membership.
But this is merely the surface detail: the smiling, pro-Western face Georgian Dream presents to the world. Start to peel away the makeup, and what is underneath looks very different.
In the 18 months since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the government has been growing closer to Russia. From a Western perspective, disturbingly close. Not only has Tbilisi refused to join sanctions, it has actually increased trade with its former overlord. According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "In 2022, Georgia's exports to Russia increased by 6.8 percent to $652 million, while imports soared by 79 percent to $1.8 billion: the highest level for the past sixteen years."
At the same time, Georgian Dream has been desperately sending signals to Putin to suggest the party is on his side. About a month after his meeting with Stoltenberg, Prime Minister Garibashvili sat before a security conference in Bratislava and blamed NATO for the war in Ukraine. "One of the main reasons [for the war] was NATO," he said. "NATO enlargement … one of the reasons was Ukraine's will and determination to become a member of NATO. And so, therefore, we see the consequences."
It should go without saying, but trash-talking a club you want to join is not a good way to become a member of that club. Yet Georgian Dream is routinely trash-talking NATO with all the gusto of a professional wrestler taunting his opponent. In the immediate aftermath of Russia's full-scale invasion, Open Caucasus Media analyzed the statements being made by party chairman Irakli Kobakhidze. Over five months, Kobakhidze made nine comments critical of Russia, compared to 26 critical of Ukraine, and nearly 60 about the West.
These are not isolated events. Multiple high-ranking members of Georgian Dream have repeatedly accused both NATO and the EU of trying "to drag Georgia into the war against Russia." The result of these outbursts has been to drive Tbilisi further from both institutions. The NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia declared of Georgia's behavior, "We are concerned, as an Alliance and the Allies themselves."
Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that Prime Minister Garibashvili has picked fights with the European Parliament, accusing them of peddling LGBTQ+ propaganda, while his defense minister calls liberalism a threat to the nation's security. If you pay attention to European news, you might be thinking this sounds like Georgian Dream are deliberately channeling Viktor Orbán — almost as if the spirit of the Hungarian autocrat has somehow possessed Tbilisi. In this, you might be mostly right.
## A Deliberate Strategy
Foreign Policy spoke with Eto Buziashvili at the Atlantic Council, who suggested all this rhetoric was part of a deliberate strategy: a way of ensuring Georgia will never join NATO or the EU, without the politically costly risk of just coming out and saying they are not interested.
By intentionally pushing the EU's buttons by mimicking Orbán, Georgian Dream knows it is torpedoing its bid to join the bloc. Likewise, declaring NATO started the Ukraine war is pretty much guaranteed to anger the entire Alliance. Or, as Buziashvili put it: "It appears that backsliding of democracy, failed judiciary reforms, political prosecution, assault on free media and pro-democracy activists, and attacks on freedom of speech [are done] intentionally to prevent Georgia from becoming part of the Western institutions."
As that list suggests, the plot goes beyond merely badmouthing the West. In the last couple of years, Georgian Dream has been executing a power grab, stacking the judiciary to such an extent that the US recently sanctioned four senior judges for corruption. The party has also imprisoned former president Mikheil Saakashvili on what his supporters call trumped-up charges, and may even be slowly poisoning him to death — at least according to those supporters. If nothing else, they appear to be denying him adequate medical care.
Taken together, these comments and actions are the perfect way to sabotage the pro-West aspirations of Georgia's people. They throw down a roadblock future governments will struggle mightily to overcome.
At this stage, you might be feeling a little confused. Russia attacked these guys 15 years ago, and still occupies a fifth of their country — but they secretly do not want to ever join NATO? How does that make sense? To answer that, we only need to use a single word: oligarchy. More to the point: a single oligarch, around whom everything in Georgia turns. An oligarch desperate to bend an entire nation to his whims.
## The Man Behind the Curtain
If you want to understand modern Georgia, there is no better way than first understanding its most powerful man: Bidzina Ivanishvili. The founder of Georgian Dream, Ivanishvili is also a man of staggering wealth in a country where the average monthly wage clocks in at around $650. With over $5 billion to his name, Ivanishvili's wealth is, according to the Guardian, "equivalent to more than a quarter of Georgia's GDP."
Not that his power only derives from his money. Despite retiring as prime minister in 2013 after only a year in the post — and leaving politics altogether in 2021 — Ivanishvili still retains a vice-like grip on the ruling Georgian Dream party. The current prime minister, for example, is a former employee of his construction firm. The head of security worked in several of his businesses. The interior minister started out as Ivanishvili's head bodyguard. According to Foreign Policy, every single current minister was once one of his personal aides. Speaking to the Guardian, the vice-president of the Georgian Institute for Strategic Studies declared, "We are basically a one-man-dominated political system, where the oligarch Ivanishvili is basically fine-tuning everything."
And what Ivanishvili wants to do right now, it seems, is fine-tune his nation into becoming a supporter of Russia. Although born in Georgia during the Soviet era, Ivanishvili made most of his fortune in Moscow. Specifically, he was one of the oligarchs who took control of major state industries in the wild days of 1990s privatization, before selling his accumulated business interests off for a killing.
Where that wealth is stored today is a matter of some controversy. Ivanishvili's name has cropped up in almost every major financial investigation of the last few years, from the Panama Papers to the Pandora Papers. But some suspect at least part of it is still tied up in Russia, where the Kremlin tightly controls who has access to what. All of which may explain the distinctly pro-Russia direction Ivanishvili has recently been tiptoeing in. According to Foreign Policy, "Experts place the blame for Georgia's hard turn toward Russia with billionaire oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili."
It is worth pointing out that Ivanishvili denies all of this. He denies he is pro-Russian, or that he is even still active in his nation's politics — though he is not convincing many people. Back in 2022, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for sanctions on Ivanishvili, a resolution that highlighted his "destructive role" in Georgia's economy and political life. Others have gone even further. Batu Kutelia, a former Georgian ambassador to the United States, has claimed, "Ivanishvili is the informal ruler of Georgia and a Russian ally."
For most Georgians, this must be a depressing thought: that you live in an overwhelmingly pro-West country, but because of a single oligarch, all 3.7 million of you are being dragged ever-deeper into Vladimir Putin's ice-cold, suffocating embrace. Right now, the opposition is trying to fight back against Ivanishvili's and Georgian Dream's anti-NATO stances. But they simply hold too few seats in parliament to effect any change, at least until the next elections in 2024.
Still, it would be a mistake to reduce the entire story to one man's reach. Let us assume for a moment that, aside from just money, Georgian Dream has rational reasons for its sudden new, anti-Western course. In that case, what might those reasons be?
## Let Down and Hanging Around
For many non-NATO nations in Europe, Russia's unprovoked and genocidal attack on Ukraine was a wake-up call as to the Alliance's value. Within months, both Sweden and Finland applied to join. Ukraine, likewise, is pinning its hopes for post-war security on a seat at the table. Even Ireland at least discussed the possibility of joining NATO, a possibility since rejected.
In Georgia, though, the onslaught seems to have pushed many government officials in the opposite direction. Rather than a security guarantee, many seem to believe taking steps to join the Alliance today would actually put them in increased danger. The basic outline of this idea is that — if Putin really is determined to stop NATO expansion — then Russia would be at its most dangerous in the period between Georgia receiving its Membership Action Plan and actually joining. During that time, Tbilisi would not be covered by NATO's collective defense policy — the famous Article Five that would bring not just most of Europe's armies, but also Uncle Sam running to help. And Georgian officials are worried NATO would not risk war with Russia for a nation not yet a member.
As one Western diplomat in Georgia told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, "Where they used to view receiving a Membership Action Plan as a positive step, the prime minister made it clear in Bratislava that maybe his perception is that steps short of actual security guarantees actually increase Georgia's vulnerability." This has been exacerbated by a perception in Tbilisi that the West has not done enough to help Ukraine.
If you are from one of the countries that has poured billions of dollars of equipment into Ukraine to help Kyiv fend off the Russian assault, that might sound a little screwy. Clearly NATO is trying to help drive Russia out as best it can. But that is not how it looks to some in Georgia's government — for whom a Russian invasion is not a mere possibility, but something they have actual, recent experience of.
Right now, were Russia to suddenly strike from its bases in South Ossetia, Georgia would be in existential danger. Unlike Ukraine, where the nation's sheer size meant the city of Kyiv had days to prepare for the arrival of Russian forces, Georgia is such a tiny country that you would not even be able to comfortably watch Oppenheimer before armor was at your front door. According to the Guardian, "If the Russians did strike from South Ossetia, they could cut Georgia's main east-west highway in a few minutes, and be in Tbilisi within a couple of hours."
From this perspective, anything other than a concerted NATO drive to expel Russia from Ukraine probably would look underwhelming. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace put it thusly: "To Tbilisi, Western military aid for Ukraine looks insufficient to end the war, while Russia has succeeded in retaining control of large parts of the country. Georgian officials believe the balance of power is shifting in Russia's favor."
From this angle of cold calculation, tilting softly towards Russia may be the only rational thing Georgia can do. It is what Victor Kipiani, chairman of the Geocase think tank in Tbilisi, told the New York Times was a "balancing act" — an attempt to mollify the angry, giant nation on their doorstep while not completely burning bridges with the West. To put it in extremely simple terms: working with Russia allows the Georgian economy to get fat off increased trade and travel — in other words, a tangible plus. Running for the NATO security umbrella, on the other hand, offers both possible benefits and the potential for nationwide armageddon. As Kipiani told the New York Times, "The country is a prisoner of its own geography."
## Defending the Indefensible?
Of course, there is one set of actors in all this we have not really heard from yet, with its own opinions on the pluses and minuses of Georgia's security situation: NATO itself.
For all the focus in NATO capitals on Georgia's democratic backsliding, the truth is that this may just be a red herring — a bucket of pungent seafood intended to distract from the real issues. We can deduce this because the Alliance has a track record of letting in or tolerating nations with less than stellar forms of governance. Greece, for example, remained a member even after the colonels established their military dictatorship. Today, autocratic regimes like Turkey and Hungary are still in the club despite their questionable commitment to democracy.
More to the point, NATO has recently admitted new members with problematic politics. In 2017, Montenegro entered the Alliance; followed in 2020 by North Macedonia. In 2021, Transparency International ranked both nations far behind Georgia for corruption. Given all that, it seems unlikely that rule of law is the only thing worrying NATO's members about Georgia's bid. So where might the real problem lie?
The best guess: in the two separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Over its history, NATO has occasionally admitted states with disputed territory. West Germany, for example, joined back when the country's east was still locked away behind the Iron Curtain. Likewise, the Alliance has a few member states with territories its security guarantee does not cover. Guam and Hawaii are both explicitly excluded from America's Article Five protection, as is Réunion Island from France's.
Still, admitting a state with 20 percent of its territory under Russian occupation would be a massive step. Even if the Alliance and Georgia both agreed that Abkhazia and South Ossetia were not covered by NATO's security guarantee, there would simply be too high a risk of confrontation with Russia. Given how careful NATO has been about not getting dragged into the Ukraine war so far, it is understandable members might not want to run the risk of antagonizing Moscow in the South Caucasus.
Especially considering how hard Georgia would be to defend. One massive advantage Ukraine has enjoyed in its war is the sheer amount of border it shares with NATO countries. Arms and equipment can readily flow in from Poland, Romania, and Slovakia, and could likewise have flowed in from Hungary had Orbán not blocked them. Georgia, on the other hand, borders a single NATO member: Turkey. And that border is relatively short, and covered with mountains. Only two major roads connect Georgia's interior with Turkey. In the event of a conflict, that would create two obvious strategic chokepoints for Russia to attack — potentially making resupply difficult.
Combined with the short distance between Russian forces in South Ossetia and the capital of Tbilisi, you can start to see why NATO members might consider Georgia just too difficult to defend. Or, as War on the Rocks put it in 2021, "Defending a country … as remote as Georgia puts in doubt NATO's ability to deploy the substantial in-theater and backup forces and equipment this would require. It also puts in doubt America's willingness to greatly enhance its existing deterrence initiative and not least carry the financial burden."
Of course, the counter-argument is that putting Georgia's NATO bid on ice because of fear of Russia effectively hands Vladimir Putin a veto over Tbilisi's foreign policy. It also raises the question of whether the Alliance truly has an open-door policy, or if that is just a comforting fiction members tell themselves. Nonetheless, these are real problems NATO must grapple with when deciding whether to admit Georgia — a decision the Alliance has now successfully been putting on hold for 15 years.
## A Firm "No" — Or Just "Not Yet"?
So has the headline question been answered with a firm "no"? Certainly, there are good reasons to be pessimistic. A ruling party consolidating power, even as it snuggles up close to the Kremlin. A difficult strategic environment. A fear in both Brussels and Tbilisi that starting the process might invite a massive Russian backlash.
Yet, for all the matter may seem settled, there are small grounds for optimism, too. Not just in the ongoing military cooperation between NATO and Georgia, but in the people of Georgia themselves. With around three-quarters of Georgians wanting to join the Alliance, it seems reasonable to think their government can only hold them back so long.
Sure, it might not be an easy road. But if we truly believe in self-determination for all peoples, then it is hard to see how NATO could ultimately refuse Tbilisi's accession. Because, in Georgia, we have a country that has already suffered 15 years of Russian aggression and hybrid warfare — the only other nation in Europe that has even the remotest idea of how Ukrainians feel right now.
Their past may have been defined by the colossus on their northern border. But if Georgians get their way, then maybe — just maybe — the future will be defined by something else: by the freedom to choose a new destiny, far from the Kremlin's clutches.
## Frequently Asked Questions
### Does Georgia's constitution require it to seek NATO membership?
Yes. Article 78 of the Georgian Constitution instructs the government to pursue membership of both NATO and the EU. A 2018 amendment goes further, insisting the nation's leaders "take all measures … to ensure the full integration of Georgia into the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization."
### What happened in the 2008 Russia-Georgia war?
After separatists in South Ossetia shelled Georgia, Tbilisi sent in its army, only for Russian armor to sweep across the border. In five days of fighting, 850 people were killed, 35,000 Georgians were driven from their homes, and Russian tanks came within kilometers of Tbilisi. Effectively the entire Georgian navy and air force were destroyed. When it ended, 20 percent of Georgian territory — Abkhazia and South Ossetia — remained under Russian occupation, as it has ever since.
### Who is Bidzina Ivanishvili and why does he matter?
Ivanishvili is the billionaire founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party, with over $5 billion to his name — equivalent to more than a quarter of Georgia's GDP. Despite formally leaving politics in 2021, he is widely described as the informal ruler of Georgia. Every current minister was once one of his personal aides, and analysts blame his influence for Georgia's hard turn toward Russia. He made much of his fortune in 1990s Moscow privatization and denies being pro-Russian.
### Why might NATO be reluctant to admit Georgia, beyond democratic backsliding?
NATO has tolerated members with poor governance records — Greece under its colonels, Turkey, and Hungary today — and admitted Montenegro and North Macedonia despite their ranking far behind Georgia on corruption. The real obstacles appear to be the two Russian-occupied regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, comprising 20 percent of Georgian territory, and the difficulty of defending a tiny nation that borders only one NATO member, Turkey, across a short, mountainous frontier.
### Why has Georgia's government grown closer to Russia since 2022?
Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Georgian Dream has refused to join sanctions and increased trade with Russia — exports rose 6.8 percent to $652 million and imports soared 79 percent to $1.8 billion in 2022. Officials argue the period between receiving a Membership Action Plan and actually joining would leave Georgia most exposed to Russian attack, without the protection of NATO's Article Five collective defense.
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