After Joe Biden came to power, the issue of relations with the South Caucasus was again on the agenda of the US administration. Fearing confrontation with Turkey in the Middle East and Russia in the Caucasus, the United States now sees a way to expand ties with the Caucasus in Georgia.
Many Western experts believe that Georgia's membership into NATO could play a major role in the implementation of the US plan for the region. Robert Cutler, a US political expert on the Middle East and South Caucasus, had also touched on the issue in his recent comment to us.
This time, Emil Avdaliani, a professor at the European University in Tbilisi, Georgia gave an interview to the Eurasia Diary to clarify the issue.
Georgia's membership in NATO is the hope for the West to expand ties in the region. However, under NATO's membership law, countries with territorial integrity problems cannot join NATO. What can you say about this?
- The territorial problems Georgia has because of Russia's military presence in Abkhazia and Tskhinvali Region (widely known as South Ossetia) is indeed a major obstacle for the country’s NATO membership prospects.
To avoid this problem various models for the alliance membership are being proposed. Among them is a non-inclusion of Georgia’s troubled territories under NATO defence obligations thereby extending the collective defence article solely over the territories under Tbilisi’s control.
But there seems to be the lack of willingness to pursue this line. The West has its problems to solve. Among them are frictions in the Transatlantic ties, the fallout from the pandemic, strained relations with the rising China etc. Perhaps no less important is the thinking in the West on how Georgia’s NATO membership could further complicate relations with Russia. The EU-Russia relations are at their lowest (as Borrell’s visit to Moscow showed), but major European states are still unwilling to further complicate the ties with Moscow.
Furthermore, though the US president Joe Biden is more straightforward in its vision of future bilateral ties with Russia and his administration will certainly be more principled towards Moscow, it is also clear that Biden is unlikely to seek further complications with Russia. Russia's military presence in Georgia’s Abkhazia and Tskhinvali Region will be often invoked and criticized by the US official, but it remains to be seen how far Washington will be able to go regarding Georgia’s NATO membership prospects.
For the moment, Russian military moves in the region, particularly following the Second Karabakh War, serve as a major disincentive for the US and NATO overall to make a major move in the region. Perhaps what could happen is an introduction of an enhanced NATO-Georgia partnership involving more regular military training, transfer of military technologies etc.
Does Georgia take into account the threat of Russia when it joins NATO?
- Russian military moves in Abkhazia and Tskhinvali Region represent a direct military threat to Tbilisi. However, with the NATO membership Georgia is seeking to have a safer geopolitical situation along its borders.
It does not mean that even after the NATO membership, problems along the contact line in the two regions would not take place, but overall the NATO alliance is the only option for Georgia to balance the negative effects it experiences because of the loss of direct political control over Abkhazia and Tskhinvali Region.
In general, is the Georgian army ready for NATO standards today?
- The Georgian army improves its military capabilities. Harmonization with NATO standards through military trainings with the western partners and other methods such as sharing of military experience is constantly taking place.
New military technologies are bought. Major efforts are being put into improving the country’s air-defence system. This has been the weakest point in Georgia’s military in general. The Second Karabakh War and the effective use of drones underlined the need for the improvement of the air-defence system. To offset the deficiencies in the air-defence sector the partnerships with France and Israel were made.
These are still only modest moves. In comparison with the neighbouring states, Georgia’s military budget, though steadily growing over the past several years, is still considerably smaller.
By Elnur Enveroglu
