Rustam Karakhanli writes…
The hardening of the West’s collective policy towards Georgia may result in its exclusion from the processes taking place in our region once and for all. This unsuccessful approach has been used in relation to Azerbaijan for years and has produced no real results. The fact that Washington and Brussels continue to view the post-Soviet countryside through the lens of the Russo-Ukrainian war is an indication of the West’s ineffectiveness and exhausted policy. Neither on the other side of the ocean, nor in Europe, do they persistently want to understand that in a world that is constantly transforming towards multipolarity, the tedious narratives of the West do not seem attractive to countries like Azerbaijan and Georgia.
Although Donald Trump’s foreign policy meetings, which challenge the principles of the American political situation, are alienating, the Republican candidate is right: the fog surrounding the West’s hopes of defeating Russia in Ukraine is growing darker. In this reality, losing Georgia, which is the “gateway” to the South Caucasus, after Azerbaijan, means that interests in the region will be tied to the framework of Nikol Pashinyan’s stay in power in Armenia. Baku and Tbilisi have elevated relations with China to strategic status. The Chinese are building the Anaklia seaport, a major transportation project in Georgia. China invests most of the funds in the “Middle Corridor”, which acts as a critical dam in the South Caucasus. Russia considers the region’s logistics center to be a priority direction for export operations. In such a situation, it is at least incomprehensible that the United States and the European Union would reduce their partnership with the Georgian government to the level of suicide.
The fact that the ruling party won the parliamentary elections in Georgia with 54 percent is a sad image of the West playing with the destiny of the Georgian people for its own interests, especially after 2008. Unfortunately, the leaders of Ukraine today cannot understand this, or they understand it, but they are helpless. The West has found itself in its own trap: there is no solid fact that the elections are “against democracy”, but the US Secretary of State cannot give up threatening communication with Tbilisi. London and Brussels repeat the same approach. The “heavy artillery” of Paris in Georgia does not hesitate to kill President Salomé Zurabishvili, who changed her French citizenship for Georgian identity 22 years ago. Even Canada, located across the ocean and not taken seriously in the region, joined this “orchestra” in August-September last year: Ottawa’s biggest official “win” since the role of herald of “rights.” in Artsakh” was to become a topic of political sarcasm.
The processes followed around the overlapping elections in Georgia and Moldova show that the “Global North” is not “in search of democracy” here, but is aware of its failed geopolitical interests. Georgia, which has not joined any sanctions against Russia, managed to increase its GDP by 18 percent in two years, while Moldova, which has resorted to the tumult of the West, continues to take its place. In Moldova, inflation tripled, while in Georgia, on the contrary, it decreased by the same amount. In two years, Chisinau managed to attract only 7 million dollars of direct investment, while Tbilisi reached an indicator of 4 billion dollars. If in 2022 Georgia surpassed Moldova in trade by 4 billion dollars, now this figure rises to 9 billion. This statistic is a reflection of the situation faced by two countries with the same capabilities, which depend on the West and act based on their national interests.
The decisive reason why the South Caucasus began to act as a geopolitical unit in global politics and trade is that Azerbaijan defeated Armenia four years ago and put an end to historical injustice. Baku managed to save the entire region from the dictates of the will of the geopolitical powers. Not only the South Caucasus. In the context of the relevance of the issue of global transport routes, the series of growth of the importance of the geography of Central Asia or Turkey is the effect of the repercussion of the victory achieved by Azerbaijan that goes beyond the borders of the region. In such a reality, the collective drama of Western “democracy” is akin to Iraq’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. In the Caucasus, they can only hope that such “arguments” are serious in Yerevan. They don’t believe, they can hope.
