Georgia's prospects for NATO membership in the near or medium term are pretty much zero, and public support for membership has dropped precipitously -- over the last two years, the percentage of Georgians who "fully" support membership has fallen a whopping 50 points.
So why does Georgia's government persist on making it a top priority? Michael Cecire of the blog Evolutsia.net suggests that Tbilisi is wasting its time wooing NATO, and instead should be focused on cleaning up its own house:
So what, exactly, is the point of Georgia’s insistence on being a NATO member? While there is certainly an intellectual case to be made that Tbilisi’s desire to join NATO is a case in itself, that argument does not hold up against more practical scrutiny. It’s not a question of whether or not Georgia wants to be in NATO, but of why the government continues to pursue this goal against what are realistically insurmountable odds.
The most obvious answer is that Georgia’s NATO bid was never entirely about defense, but served as a symbol for Georgia’s Western orientation. As long as Georgia is prevented from being a NATO member, there is a perception that its transformation into a truly ‘Western’ state will have been incomplete. Rightly or not, NATO membership has become a stand-in for concrete values and institutions that make the West what they are.
No one questions whether or not countries like Switzerland, Japan, Australia, or Israel are sufficiently ‘Western,’ despite not being member states of NATO. And that is because those countries’ institutions, while not perfect, are not incompatible with the standards to which most Western countries hold themselves.
This, more than the promise of joining clubs or associations, should be the real goal of Georgia’s development. Though the country has experienced several years of rapid reforms, Georgia continues to have a long road ahead in order for it to truly qualify as a Western country. Key elections, important legal clarifications, and further cultural shifts will be necessary for this to happen.
I think those last two paragraphs may overestimate how genuine Washington (and especially the Pentagon) is about supporting countries that have truly "Western" institutions. You need only to look at the situation in Kyrgyzstan, where the U.S. happily overlooked the deteriorating human rights situation for the sake of keeping the Manas air base. And for its enthusiastically pro-Western stance, Georgia has gotten a lot of mileage in Washington, not least a $1 billion aid package after the 2008 war with Russia.
But of course, while Georgia was being attacked, the U.S. and NATO didn't do anything to physically protect Georgia, and in the unlikely event of a future Russian attack, that's even less likely to happen. And that's what Georgia should be thinking hard about:
As for defense, NATO is barely worth considering as an option. By the time Georgia’s candidacy for NATO membership is again taken seriously, it is very probable that the dangers of foreign attack will either have passed or at least sufficiently lessened to the point of very low-risk. Instead of praying for the deus ex machina of NATO firepower to protect Georgia against Russian divisions, Georgia should re-commit to realistically providing for its own defense. That doesn’t mean building more regiments of peacekeeping battalions for NATO constabulary actions in faraway lands, but on the smart development of a military that can credibly deter Russian forces from waltzing so easily into the country. Instead of hoping to be part of a dolphin pack, Georgia needs to become a puffer fish.
I would add that Georgia's persistence in trying to buy U.S. weapons is related to this. There are many other countries out there that sell cheaper (yet effective) arms, but Tbilisi's desire for American weapons seems more about symbolism than substance.
If the last ten years have taught us anything, it's that small, underpowered forces can bring the world's most powerful military to its knees. Just next door to Georgia, Armenia is claiming that it is working on how to use asymmetry to its advantage against the rapidly growing Azerbaijan military. Maybe Georgia should start doing the same?
Joshua Kucera, a senior correspondent, is Eurasianet's former Turkey/Caucasus editor and has written for the site since 2007.
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