Back to the Future? Georgian Dream and Regional Security in the Caucasus
By Jeff Sahadeo
Professor, Carleton University
Co-Lead, Eastern European Transatlantic Network
Key Takeaways
- Georgia’s ruling party, Georgian Dream (GD), has recently turned to history in order to position itself as a defender of a peaceful, enduring state amid dangerous neighbours.
- GD continues to conduct a multivector foreign policy but must carefully balance relationships with Eurasian powers alongside a “European” identity favoured by its citizens.
- As long as it spurns Euro-Atlantic integration, Georgia’s security relies on its utility as a hub to evade sanctions and conduct international trade.
A Turn to Georgia’s Pre-Imperial Past
Georgia’s Prime Minister, Irakli Kobakhidze, detoured centuries into the country’s history during a briefing on international relations on August 18. Before the press, he praised the 1783 Treaty of Georgievsk, when Erekle II of the Georgian kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti accepted Russian “protection” in exchange for guarantees of sovereignty.
Kobakhidze’s unprompted defence of a treaty that foreshadowed Imperial Russia’s annexation of Georgia sparked a firestorm at home and abroad. Did this move herald a new stage – or at least a new public stage – in Russia-Georgia relations? Russian media nodded approvingly. What might this mean for Georgia’s multivector foreign policy, which has been leaning heavily towards China, Iran and Eurasia in the past years? What did it augur for tentative efforts at transatlantic détente with North America and the European Union (EU), which have been critical of Georgia’s democratic backsliding?
Any effort to attribute long-term strategy to the actions of the governing Georgian Dream (GD) party is risky, but Kobakhidze appealed to domestic and international audiences alike as he spoke about Georgia’s place in the world through its history. The diversion reveals above all the delicacy of Georgia’s security surrounded by countries currently at war (Russia, Ukraine, Iran) as well as those considering a path to peace (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Türkiye). It also accounts for the Georgian population’s ambivalent views towards Europe, Russia and Eurasian powers.
Kobakhidze presented Erekle II’s decision as a “civilizational choice” for Georgia. He cited Christianity and “traditional European culture” in a treaty that ostensibly allowed Georgia to avoid assimilation into Turkic or Persian worlds. He also argued Georgians should not be surprised that Russia – which later violated the agreement, absorbing the region in 1801 – would act in its own interests, in a briefing that presented a starkly realist view of international relations.
Russia’s state-run news agency, RIA Novosti, highlighted Kobakhidze’s speech with the headline: “Another country refuses to consider Russia an enemy.” Georgian opposition figures alongside Mikheil Saakashvili, the now-jailed former Prime Minister, warned that this “history lesson” foreshadowed a future agreement between Georgia and Russia. One that the Georgian public, still negatively inclined towards its northern neighbour (recent polling counts 79% of Georgians distrusting Russia), would need to swallow for its own future survival and “civilization.”
Europe (Which Europe) or Eurasia?
Motivations behind Kobakhidze’s statements, however, appear more complicated. GD has little to gain through formalizing a relationship with Russia. Opening a discussion on the Russian-backed territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia – which together compose about 20% of Georgia’s territory – would open a large wound with unpredictable consequences. Given Russia’s unpopularity in Georgia, GD has always operated in a zone of plausible (and public) deniability of links between Moscow and Tbilisi. Sanctions-busting, however, is rampant. Georgia has followed domestic security playbooks used in Russia and Belarus, among others, from demonizing the West through “Foreign Agent” legislation to the use of violence against opposition.
Keeping these relationships quiet also allows Georgia to continue feigning allegiance with the West even as it builds an increasingly authoritarian state, condemning “pseudo-liberals,” cracking down on Western NGOs and moving away from its EU candidate status. The loss, however, of their closest ally in Europe – Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party – complicated GD’s narrative that they would join, in essence, an Orbánified-Europe. Georgia has extended olive branches to Germany and a high-level parliamentary delegation visited Canada in June. As Kobakhidze’s defence of Erekle II highlights, Georgia continues to view itself as “civilizationally” European. GD leaders hold extensive real estate and business stakes in Europe, alongside citizenship for their families. Formal agreements with Russia would threaten GD members with further sanctions (beyond those already enacted by the EU for election-rigging, corruption and violent repression of peaceful protests) and disturb their quiet – though commonly-known within Georgia – relationship with the European powers whose liberal values they condemn in terms similar to European populists.
Kobakhidze’s highlighting of Erekle II’s Christian choice also serves to counterbalance its increasing Eurasian links, even as the population overwhelmingly considers itself European. Thus far in 2026, Kobakhidze has visited the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan; Uzbek President Shavkat Mirzoyiyev met Kobakhidze in Tbilisi in July. Georgian President Mikheil Kavelashvili also attended the funeral of Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei in July 2026, while on June 9 Georgia and China “upgraded” their relationship to a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.”
The Middle Corridor: Georgia’s Future?
Georgia is staking its security and prosperity on acting as a critical transport hub through the Middle Corridor (also known as the Trans-Caspian International Transit Route), linking China to Europe through Central Asia and the Caucasus. Traffic through the Middle Corridor has experienced exponential growth since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Central Asia’s rare earth minerals and other critical resources promise to increase the corridor’s importance in the coming years. Georgia’s free trade agreements with Türkiye, the EU, and US also serve to make the country extremely attractive for Chinese enterprises. Chinese companies have already played a major role in upgrading Georgian road and rail infrastructure, while Xinjiang’s Hualing Group facilitates commercial exchange between Georgia and other Xinjiang-based Chinese companies.
Georgia’s ties with Iran have also deepened, though the effect of the ongoing regional war is unclear. As with Russia, Georgia has become a sanctions evasion hub for Iranian companies. Russian strategic airlifters have been allowed to fly through Georgian airspace en route to Iran, even though the country has pledged to uphold US sanctions on civil aviation. And while relations with the US remain rocky, GD does not seek to fully alienate any global superpower. Washington has noted the importance of Middle Corridor trade and expressed interest in the long-stalled plan to develop the deep-sea Anaklia port on the Black Sea after a Chinese company withdrew from the project.
GD also realizes it needs to move quickly to consolidate trade as the prospective Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) could soon become a rival transitway across the Middle Corridor. With plans to take Chinese and Central Asian goods to Europe through Armenia and Azerbaijan, the TRIPP represents a threat to Georgia’s role in facilitating regional trade. However, to Georgia’s benefit, TRIPP continues to face delays and faces staunch Iranian opposition.
How does Erekle II fit this picture? Kobakhidze wants Georgians to consider the historic King as making hard but necessary geopolitical decisions in a world of great powers. Kobakhidze, like Erekle in a way, wants to be seen as the trusted actor to deal with dangerous entities in the interests of maintaining a sovereign and peaceful Georgia, which has been GD’s basic platform since 2022. GD wants to show a “civilized” European face even as it deepens dealings with Eurasian powers. This discourse also serves as a signal to Russia that Georgia is a friendly country even as it privileges maintenance of its sovereignty. GD will, in the meantime, happily use a historical debate to flush out domestic opposition that has condemned this comparison through its control of an increasingly authoritarian regime. Georgians who oppose GD point to growing internal party divisions, including the recent imprisonment of a former Prime Minister, as evidence of a party lacking the funds to grease enough palms to tighten its rule. Such calls, however, remain based on hope more than evidence.
Policy Recommendations
- GD’s decision to support US civil aviation sanctions on Iran shows it is sensitive to Western pressure. Intensified efforts, by Europe and the US simultaneously, to identify and punish sanctions-busting by the Georgian government could loosen GD’s anti-democratic grip.
- Possible carrots for Georgia can involve support for trans-shipment through Anaklia or an expanded Poti port, with strings that would allow Georgian civil society groups to function. It is unclear, however, whether GD would make such a concession. One stick would involve efforts to shift trade to TRIPP, effectively icing Georgia out of the economic benefits of regional integration.