Recently, Georgian foreign policy has distanced itself from the aggressive Western integration vision experienced particularly during the Saakashvili era, shifting towards a pragmatic realpolitik axis that centers on the military reality of its border neighbor, Russia, and the country’s geoeconomic transit capacity. This strategic transformation entails a cautious distance that prioritizes national survival instead of a directly confrontational line. Indeed, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Maka Bochorishvili’s emphasis in an interview given to Imedi (Hope) television in June 2026 that the ruling Georgian Dream Party’s (GD) decision to avoid military conflict with Russia and resist external pressures in order to protect sovereignty could not be digested by some foreign powers, is the clearest indicator of Tbilisi’s will not to sacrifice the country for the sake of abstract issues.
Because this policy of neutrality began with the decision of the then-Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili on February 25, 2022, not to join the sanctions against Russia, and as a result, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recalled his Ambassador to Tbilisi, while the domestic opposition accused the government of collaborating with Russia.[i] Although this rational pursuit of balance is a strategy to avoid asymmetric devastation, it has created a deep security dilemma and polarization in domestic politics. For instance, Levan Bezhashvili, Chairman of the Political Council of the United National Movement (UNM), strongly reacted to Garibashvili’s rhetoric at a summit in Moldova, which questioned NATO accession and resembled Russia’s “Do you want war?” propaganda; he detailed that using the Ukrainian example as an intimidation tactic for Georgia was a treacherous approach, and this narrative created sharp indignation in society.[ii]
This identity crisis experienced by Tbilisi internally and the strictly realist stance it adopted externally have generated serious normative concerns within NATO’s institutional mind and compelled it to review the political architecture of bilateral relations. In NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s 2025 Annual Report published on March 26, 2026, serious concerns regarding Georgia’s democratic trajectory were highlighted in light of developments such as the 2024 parliamentary elections, subsequent restrictive laws, and the arrest of opposition politicians; it was stated that the country must urgently return to its pro-European course, and it was explicitly expressed that cooperation priorities, including the Substantial NATO-Georgia Package (SNGP), were being reviewed.[iii]
Despite these regressions, the Alliance does not ignore the geostrategic importance of the Caucasus; indeed, other details reflected in the report drew attention to the exercises successfully conducted in May with the participation of 17 allied and partner countries, the active contacts of the NATO Liaison Office in Tbilisi, and the welcoming of the peace agreement reached between Armenia and Azerbaijan in August under US mediation.[iv] Considering maintaining dialogue to solve problems rather than severing institutional ties as the most logical path, Secretary General Rutte called on Georgia to return to the democratic route in coordination with the EU, while detailing that the country continues to be among the supported partners alongside Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iraq, Jordan, Mauritania, Moldova, and Tunisia within the scope of the Defence Capacity Building initiative.[v]
Despite the existence of high-level political frictions, it is clearly observed that the interoperability and institutional resilience capacity achieved in the military field are structurally decoupled from political tensions. During his visit to Tbilisi on May 7-8, 2026, Ambassador Kevin Hamilton, the NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, evaluated instruments such as the Individually Tailored Partnership Programme, SNGP, and the NATO Military Committee Georgia Work Plan with Maka Bochorishvili, Irakli Chikovani, and Lasha Darsalia, whilst inspecting the JTEC and personally visiting the Administrative Boundary Line of the occupied South Ossetia region to emphasize the Alliance’s unwavering support.[vi] Simultaneously, Georgia’s risk management on multilateral platforms continues; the Georgian Parliamentary Delegation led by Nikoloz Samkharadze attended the NATO Parliamentary Assembly Spring Session in Vilnius on May 30-June 1, 2026, discussing critical security issues such as conventional threats originating from Russia, modern technologies in combat, and increasing defense budgets, and participated in the voting of the “Quantum Leap in Deterrence and Defence” declaration.[vii]
As a matter of fact, Georgia appears to have shifted its relations with NATO away from a search for radical strategic alignment that would directly provoke Moscow, towards more “technical and silent” areas such as maritime security, border protection, and tactical infrastructure construction. As the most concrete example of this, the Ministry of Internal Affairs Border Police Coast Guard Department and the Joint Maritime Operations Management Center (JMOC) hosted the SNGP Core Team and Maritime Security Initiative experts; following the briefings given by Badri Shengelia, the Head of the Coast Guard Department, Yura Pirtskhalashvili, personally presented the engineering infrastructure, patrol ships, and tactical equipment of the special response teams at the Poti Base to the delegation.[viii]
Looking forward with the current relations in this context, it is expected that this spiral of “strategic balancing” crystallizing in Georgia’s foreign policy will become a permanent state doctrine in the upcoming medium term and is highly likely to be maintained. It is anticipated that the shifting balances in global supply chains and the increasing geoeconomic appeal of international trade routes, especially those connecting Asia and Europe, may compel the Tbilisi administration to conduct a multipolar and careful diplomacy to protect its transit monopoly. In this regard, it is assessed that Georgia will continue to meticulously avoid official and provocative integration steps in its relations with NATO, such as the Membership Action Plan (MAP), which Moscow considers a strict “red line,” while concurrently continuing to maximally benefit from the capacity building, cyber defense, and critical infrastructure funds offered by the Alliance.
From the Russian perspective, as long as Tbilisi does not host an official allied base on its territory and does not openly assume the role of a Western spearhead, it is within the realm of possibility that Moscow may show a tacit tolerance for this “technical” dimension of cooperation as a geopolitical necessity; because it is thought that Moscow’s primary priority in the South Caucasus is to maintain the regional power asymmetry in its favor by preventing Georgia from fully integrating into the Western camp institutionally, and that the aforementioned balanced engagement also indicates a strategy of not entirely closing off the possibility of bringing the frozen crises and conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia back to the diplomatic table in the future.
When the institutional and sociological reflections of this pragmatic foreign policy preference are evaluated with a holistic approach, bilateral relations between NATO and Tbilisi seem likely to be fixed in a limbo of a “permanent partnership with a suspended membership perspective” in the medium term. Although the Alliance and, in a broader context, the Euro-Atlantic bloc are expected to continue their normative criticisms in the face of what they claim to be “observed democratic regressions” and domestic political tightenings in Georgia, it is estimated that they will avoid radical diplomatic ruptures that would completely isolate the country from the field due to realpolitik necessities. The Western bloc’s deepening of the “conditional engagement” strategy with the motive of not abandoning its geostrategic sphere of influence in the Caucasus to regional rivals, and in this direction, focusing on the military and institutional resilience of the country rather than political integration, stands out as a rational probability. Ultimately, in light of all these parameters, it is evaluated that Georgia’s future position may evolve into a status of trying to survive on the geopolitical fault lines of major powers, rather than being a direct front line in global power competition.
[i] “MID Gruzii: Zapad ne Mozhet Smiritsya s Tem, Chto Strana Zashchitila Svoy Suverenitet”, TASS, https://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/27793217, (Access Date: 22.06.2026).
[ii] “Gharibashvilma Kitkhvis Nishnis Kvesh Daaqena Sakartvelos Gadatsqvetileba NATO-shi Gatsevrianebastan Dakavshirebit da Rusuli Narativi Gaagrdzela – ‘Omi Gindat?’ – Levan Bezhashvili”, GHN, https://ghn.ge/news/297096-gharibashvilma-kitkhvis-nishnis-kvesh-daaqena-sakartvelos-gadatsqvetileba-nato-shi-gatsevrianebastan-dakavshirebit-da-rusuli-narativi-gaagrdzela-omi-gindat-levan-bezhashvili, (Access Date: 22.06.2026).
[iii] “Sakartvelo NATOs Generaluri Mdivnis 2025 Tslis Angarishshi”, Civil Georgia, https://civil.ge/ka/archives/727617, (Access Date: 22.06.2026).
[iv] Yousef Bardouka, “NATO Says it ‘Reviewed Engagement’ with Georgia Following 2024 Elections and Aftermath”, OC Media, https://oc-media.org/nato-says-it-reviewed-engagement-with-georgia-following-2024-elections-and-aftermath/, (Access Date: 22.06.2026).
[v] “NATO Secretary General: ‘We Continue Cooperation with Georgia’”, JAM News, https://jam-news.net/nato-secretary-general-we-continue-cooperation-with-georgia/, (Access Date: 22.06.2026).
[vi] “NATO’s Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia visits Georgia”, NATO, https://www.nato.int/en/news-and-events/articles/news/2026/05/11/natos-special-representative-for-the-caucasus-and-central-asia-visits-georgia, (Access Date: 22.06.2026).
[vii] “Parliamentary Delegation Participates in the NATO PA Spring Session”, Parliament of Georgia, https://parliament.ge/en/media/news/sakartvelos-parlamentis-delegatsia-nato-s-saparlamento-asambleis-sagazafkhulo-sesiashi-monatsileobs, (Access Date: 22.06.2026).
[viii] “Sakartvelos Sasazghvro Politsiis Sanapiro Datsvis Departaments Nato-Sakartvelos Arsebiti Paketis Dziritadi Jgupi Estumra”, Imedi News, https://imedinews.ge/ge/samartali/441581/saqartvelos-sasazgvro-politsiis-sanapiro-datsvis-departaments-natosaqartvelos-arsebiti-paketis-dziritadi-jgupi-estumra, (Access Date: 22.06.2026).
