Georgia is at a critical geopolitical crossroads, facing increasing Russian influence and internal political division due to a controversial "foreign influence" law, which threatens its aspirations for EU and NATO membership and risks a return to Russian orbit.
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as the devastating war in Ukraine
continues grinding on without a clear
end in sight tensions are rapidly rising
in another nation that borders Russia
who the Kremlin has previously invaded
twice in only the past three decades
Georgia in May of 2024 hundreds of
thousands of Jordan citizens took to the
streets in their nation's capital TI
bissi to protest against their
government's passing of a new and highly
controversial law in the country the
ruling party that governs in Georgia the
Georgian Dream party officially refers
to this new laws the transparency of
foreign influence Bill once an in a law
the bill will require that all Nos and
media companies operating in Georgia who
receive more than 20% of their funding
from abroad to register themselves as
pursuing the interests of a foreign
power in a public registry the Georgian
Dream party argues that this bill is
necessary to provide transparency on
where Nos and media companies in Georgia
are receiving their funding from but
critics and opponents of the bill argue
that it's almost identical to a similar
law that was passed by Vladimir Putin's
government in Russia back in 2012 which
has enabled the Russian government ever
since to suppress crack down on and shut
down opposition media outlets and NOS in
the country a pattern that could be
replicated by The georan Dream party to
suppressed the opposition in Georgia too
for this reason opponents of the foreign
influence Bill have labeled it as the
Russian law but it's not the only reason
why they've been calling it that because
the Bill's passing likely also carries
with it tremendous geopolitical benefits
for the Kremlin too because it'll
probably prevent Georgia from becoming
accepted into the European Union and
NATO as well both EU EU and NATO have
repeatedly stressed the Georgia's
passing of the new foreign influence
bill will make them incompatible with
their values and that it will jeopardize
Georgia's membership prospects as a
result for decades most Georgians have
long aspired to become a member of both
blocks of nations with current polling
showing that almost 80% of the Georgian
population desires their country to join
the European Union and another poll
showing that roughly 87% of Georgians
see the ongoing war in Ukraine as a
shared cause having themselves been
invaded by Russia twice in the past
three decades that resulted in 20% of
their own internationally recognized
territory falling under Russian military
occupation it was only a few months ago
in December of 2023 when Georgia was
finally offered its long awaited and
much coveted candidacy status by the
European Union which if one day approved
into a fully fledged member state would
establish a disconnected chunk of the
European Union across the Black Sea over
in Western Asia wedged in between Russia
and Turkey which would also make Georgia
the fifth EU member state to share a
direct border with Russia after Poland
Lithuania Lavia Estonia and Finland but
it was only 4 months after Georgia
received its EU candidacy status that
the ruling Georgia dream party decided
to reintroduce their controversial
foreign influence law again you see the
party had originally introduced the bill
back in February of 2023 but after
Fierce protests erupted in the capital
city against it the bill was quickly
withdrawn this time with the bill back
in 2024 however the Georgian
government's response to the protesters
has been significantly more heavy-handed
than they ever were before involving
water cannons tear gas and even rubber
bullets as the georan dream party has
made it explicitly clear that they are
determined to pass the new law through
regardless of how unpopular it might be
and regardless of how much it
jeopardizes their ability to actually
join the EU and NATO there is therefore
a major concern growing that the
Georgian government is actively drifting
the country back into the orbit of
Russia again a concern that hasn't been
helped by many other of the government's
actions recently such as their arrest an
imprisonment of the former pro- Western
Georgian president and Ukrainian Citizen
M sakashi since 2021 the refusal to
participate in any sanctions on Russia
since the invasion of Ukraine the
resumption of direct air travel with
Russia since 2023 and their dramatically
increased trade volume with Russia since
the invasion of Ukraine started with
Georgian exports to Russia Rising by
nearly 7% in 2022 and Georgian imports
from Russia skyrocketing by 79% over the
same time period this has led the
Ukrainian government to frequently
criticize the Georgian government of
assisting the Russians in evading
sanctions and tensions between them have
gotten so high recently that Kiev
recalled their ambassador to tibilisi in
June of 2022 and then shortly after
Georgia resumed the direct flights with
Russia in 20123 Kiev even expelled the
Georgian ambassador from their country
and announced sanctions on Georgian
Airways as a consequence and then later
in September of 2023 the speaker of the
Georgian Parliament even asserted that
Ukraine was plotting a coup inor Georgia
to overthrow the Georgian Dream party
and push the country into the war with
Russia since then the Georgian
government has repeatedly accused both
the United States and Ukraine of
attempting to push Georgia into joining
the war against Russia to reclaim their
occupied territories and to open up a
second front for the Kremlin to have to
deal with and they've even gone so far
as to openly accuse the US of plotting a
coup in the country and fermenting the
current high levels of unrest going on
against them and all of this is
increasingly coming to the Delight of
Russia who is openly praise the ruling
Georgian Dream party and its new foreign
influence Bill while they still occupy
20% of Georgia's internationally
recognized territory Russia has also
long maintained its own policy of
keeping Georgia out of the EU and NATO
as much as possible just like they've
done in Ukraine because like Ukraine
Georgia occupies an extremely important
piece on the board of global geopolitics
especially from the perspective of
Moscow it is a space that both the west
and Russia want to control and keep
within their own respective camps for a
plethora of important reasons and in
order to understand why it helps to
begin with sheer
geography Georgia is often considered to
be a transcontinental country because it
exists at the hardto Define Crossroads
between Eastern Europe and Western Asia
the country's claim territory strandes
most of the greater Caucasus mountain
range historically a valuable Geographic
Frontier region separating the vast flat
Eurasian step in southern Russia from
the great Empires that emerged in
Western Asia like the Turks and the
Persians the region of the Caucasus has
long been a Battleground area for
influence in the center between all
three of these greater neighboring
Empires around it and so for centuries
the Russians have maintained a strong
policy of controlling at least the
greater Caucasus Mountains in order to
control all of the access points from
Western Asia into Southern Russia where
it's basically just flat easily
traversable land all the way from there
to Ukraine and vulgarr which if captured
would isolate Russia from the black and
Caspian Seas geographically speaking
there are really only four viable over
Land Transportation routes to take to
travel through or around the greater
Caucasus Mountains today there are the
two narrow Coastal approaches to the
west and the east of the mountains
between the Black Sea and the Caspian
Sea while the only two routs in between
the run through or over the mountains
are the Georgian Military Road here that
follows the traditional Mountain Pass
route used by Invaders and Merchants for
centuries and the nearby Roki tunnel a
tunnel pass going through the mountains
that was only built during the Soviet
era and completed in 1984 if all four of
these routes can be effectively
controlled by Russia then they can
essentially control all landbased travel
between Western Asia and Russia and so
they can block any hostile land Army
from advancing from this direction into
the exposed step of Southern Russia that
is significantly more challenging to
defend historically this was Russia's
primary concern with controlling the
area around the greater Caucasus
Mountains which included Georgia Georgia
was steadily annexed by the Russians in
the early 19th century in a peac meal
fashion and then remained within the
Russian Empire until the country
collapsed during the first world war in
1917 Georgia then managed to briefly
emerge as an independent republic before
it was swallowed back up again by the
Red Army in 1921 and incorporated into
the new Soviet Union Georgia was then as
it still is today an ethnically and
linguistically diverse place because of
its mountainous geography the Georgians
were by far the largest single group and
always made up a majority but there were
large minorities of azanis Armenians
Russians Greeks and two important lesser
known groups known as the oans and the
aasian the oans are disconnected Iranian
ethnic group more closely related to
Kurds and Persians than any of their
neighbors who straddled the border
between Russia and Georgia while the
abkhazians are a small Caucasian ethnic
group most closely related to the
circassians to the north and Russia
after the Soviet Union came to control
the region they established the Georgian
Soviet Republic as a full Union Republic
of the country but within this Republic
they also created the South oian
autonomous ablast and the obaz
autonomous Republic as well which each
maintained a high degree of autonomy
separate from the rest of Georgia this
is how things largely remained within
Georgia for decades until the Soviet
Union began collapsing in 1989 and
Georgian oian and oba's nationalism All
Began increasing in the ensuing power
vacuum at the time the majority of obas
and oans wished to remain within the
Soviet Union in order to remain closer
to their oian and ccasian kin in Russia
while the Georgians generally desired
outright Independence Moscow began
strategically supporting the South oan
and oba's Nationalist and separatist
movements in order to apply leverage
against the Great greater Georgian
independence movement and then as
tensions continued building the local
Georgian Soviet government unilaterally
revoked the autonomy of South otia in
1990 without receiving approval from
Moscow fighting erupted between the
South oeans and the obas in the Georgian
government and after Georgia declared
their independence from the Soviet Union
in early 1991 the fighting in alazia and
South otia transformed into separatist
rebellions that the Russian government
began actively supporting with arms and
volunteers by 199 3 the Russian support
to the obas and South oian separatist
had proved decisive with separatist
forces managing to secure control over
the majority of the former autonomous
regions of abazia and South otia during
and after the war in abazia in
particular the obaz side perpetrated a
mass ethnic cleansing campaign of the
Region's Georgian population more than
200,000 ethnic Georgians were forcefully
expelled at gunpoint from abasia into
the rest of Georgia while more than
5,000 others were massacred by oba's
paramilitaries which severely altered
abazia demographics Jordans plummeted
from 45.7% of abazia population in 1989
to fewer than 18% by 2011 while the obas
population Rose from only 18% to about
51% of the total population over the
same time period despite this however
Georgia initially aligned itself closer
to Russia by joining the Moscow Le
defense Alliance known as the
Commonwealth of independent states at
the end of 1993 before withdrawing only
half a decade later in 199 99 along with
aeran and then after Vladimir Putin came
to power as Russia's president in 2000
Russia began pursuing a more forward
policy towards the separatist regions of
abazia and South oia with Georgia out of
the CST he led Russia into imposing a
Visa regime on Georgia at the end of
2000 and starting in 2002 he led Russia
into rolling out a massive passport
program to the residents of South otia
abazia without the Georgian government's
approval granting roughly 90% of each of
their population's Russian passp reports
and increasing Russian territorial
claims to the regions in the process
anger and resentment towards Georgia's
conciliatory foreign policy to Russia
along with lingering political
corruption and poverty mounted and
eventually culminated with the rose
revolution of 2003 which overthrew the
previous corrupt government led by
Edward chevat and catapulted the
extremely pro-western miky sakashi into
power as the country's next president
instead which radically altered
Georgia's geopolitical alignment the
previous Georgian government had
announced their intention to join NATO
the year before the Revolution in 2002
as Russia began giving passports to the
residents in South oia and abazia but
zakashi was passionately adamant about
Georgia's future in both NATO and the
European Union and he vowed that his top
foreign policy priority was returning
full Georgian control over the
separatist regions of aazia and South
oia once again and so to help align
Georgia more with the west and increase
their odds of becoming accepted into
NATO and the EU sakashi led the country
H into sending large numbers of Georgian
soldiers to support the US War efforts
in both Iraq and Afghanistan by 2008
Georgia had 2300 of their soldiers
deployed to Iraq the third highest
number of all the states in the
International Coalition behind only the
United States and the United Kingdom
themselves while in Afghanistan Georgia
became the largest non-nato and by far
the largest per capita troop contributor
with more than 1,500 soldiers deployed
there by 2012 in total between 2004 and
2021 more than 20,000 Georgian service
members served in Afghanistan while 32
Georgian servicemen were killed in
action and another 435 wounded in the
country Georgia's outsized contributions
to Iraq and Afghanistan were of course
deliberately crafted by sakash ville's
government to try and sway American and
Western support for Georgia's admission
to Nato in the European Union in order
to help Georgia eventually reassert its
own control over their separatist
regions of abcasia and South oia again
but it wasn't just Georgia's milit Ary
support in Iraq and Afghanistan that was
making the country more attractive to
the West either it was also the
increasingly valuable space that they
occupied on the board you see the
collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991
opened up for the first time the massive
oil and gas fields of the Caspian Sea
Basin to the Western World approximately
3% of the world's oil reserves and about
7% of the world's natural gas reserves
are found here around the Caspian and
while it used to all be dominated by the
Soviets and blocked off from the West
the Soviet collapse placed the key of
the Caspian Seas oil and gas resources
into the hands of newly independent
states like aeran Kazakhstan and
Turkmenistan just about every major
Western Energy company you can think of
began moving into the region across the
1990s to break themselves into the brand
new market but they quickly found that
it was going to be geographically
difficult to transport the Region's
energy resources from the landlocked
Caspian Sea to markets far away in
Europe initially every oil and gas
pipeline from the Caspian Sea ran
through Russia for first a legacy of
Russia's dominance over these countries
during the Soviet era the Western energy
companies wanted to construct their own
oil and gas pipelines from the Caspian
region that led back to Europe but they
wanted to avoid routing any of those
pipelines through Iran to the South or
through Russia to the north and that
left two possible options the pipelines
could either go from the Caspian Sea
through aeran Georgia and turkey towards
Europe or they could go from the Caspian
Sea through aeran Armenia and turkey
towards Europe instead but at the time
aeran and Armenia had a very serious
territorial dispute going on over the
status of negoro kabak and the two were
effectively locked in a frozen war with
one another aeran refused to consider
allowing this new export route to travel
through their arch geopolitical rival
and So to avoid Armenia the Western
energy companies along with aeran and
turkey decided to Route their new
Caspian oil export pipeline North
through Georgia instead completed in
2005 the new Baku tibilisi Sean o oil
pipeline enabled aeran to export their
oil supplies through Georgia and turkey
towards the Turkish Port of Sean where
oil tankers carry the oil the rest of
the way across the Mediterranean to
markets all across Europe the new route
enabled Europe to lessen their
dependence on oil imports coming in from
the Middle East and Russia and that gave
Georgia's location controlling the
center of the route a new found
strategic value to the
Europeans and then everything began
finally coming to a head in 2008 in
February of that year Kosovo
unilaterally declared its independence
from Serbia after being fully controlled
by separatist forces for nearly the past
decade kosovo's Independence was almost
immediately recognized by virtually
every single Western Country within a
matter of months and then seizing on the
precedent they believed at set obaz and
South oia each submitted a formal
request to Russia to officially
recognize their own independence from
Georgia and then the month after that in
April of 2008 came the NATO Summit in
Bucharest during which NATO's leaders
publicly made promises that Georgia
would one day soon be officially offered
an invitation to join the alliance but
this Prospect of Georgia entering into
NATO horrified the Russians and was
interpreted by Moscow as a firm red line
that shouldn't be crossed if Georgia
flipped from being within Russia's CST
military Alliance to Nato then Georgia
would likely be supported by NATO into
helping the sakashi government regain
control over all of the separatist
controlled parts of abazia and South
otia which would then Place NATO forces
largely in control over three of the
four primary entrances into the steps of
Southern Russia when factoring in Turkey
NATO's border with Russia would be
extended continuously all the way to the
greater Caucasus Mountains themselves
while the Eastern rim of the Black Sea
would be extended under NATO Maritime
control to position n NATO Maritime and
air assets precipitously close by to the
Russian Port of Nova RIS which is the
second most significant Naval base for
the Russian Black Sea Fleet after
sevastopol in Crimea and even more
importantly it's also the most
significant oil port on the Black Sea
Coast that sees about 2 million barrels
of oil per day flowing through it as
pipelines from Kazakhstan and Russia
transport their oil to be loaded up on a
tankers in the Nova Reis Harbor and on
top of all of that Georgia's entrance
into NATO would permanently drive a
wedge between Russia and Armenia another
member of the Moscow Leed CST military
Alliance that would become hugely
isolated from the rest of the alliance
which would then likely enable their
Rivals aeran and turkey to begin
steadily picking the country territory
apart without a clear Geographic Way for
their Ally Russia to actually intervene
to stop them Georgia's entrance into
NATO would also solidify the West's
control over the AER bani oil pipeline
route to Sean which would serve to
continue Europe's ability to lessen
their economic Reliance on Russian oil
and energy resources in the long term
and while Russia knew that NATO was not
plotting an imminent invasion of
Southern Russia after adding Georgia to
the alliance Most states that operate in
the International System including
Russia are more concerned about
capability than intent intent to invade
can evolve with time after all there
were few in Russia who perceived Germany
to be a major existential threat in 1930
but it only took 11 years from then for
Germany to launch an allout genocidal
war of Conquest into Russia anyway and
while intent can evolve with time
Geographic capability to attack remains
constant Georgia's admission into NATO
and their subsequent subjugation of
abazia and South oia would Place NATO
forces immediately opposite of the
greater Caucasus Mountain with three of
the primary entrances into flat Southern
Russia largely under their control a
highly sensitive part of the country was
Russia's own most serious active
separatist movements in Cheta and
dagistan where there were still major
active armed insurgencies going on at
the time Russia was fearful that NATO
could then utilize its new position in
Georgia to inflame or even support the
separatist movements in Cheta and
dagistan and undermined Russia even
further especially after they witnessed
NATO attack Serbia in 1999 and prob the
separatist movement in Kosovo afterwards
if NATO did something similar to support
the separatist movements in Cheta and
dastan in gaining independence and then
they allow NATO troops into their
territories as peacekeepers just like
Koso did after 1999 the NATO forces
would gain a direct foothold on the
Eurasian step itself on the Northern
side of the greater Caucasus Mountains
with a clear shot for tanks to advance
across the flat terrain towards asran
and vulgarr two of Russia's most
strategically important cities because
they control the vulgar River and
Russia's access to the oil and gas
fields of the Caspian Sea in the 20th
century when vulgarr was better known as
Stalingrad the city's strategic
importance was considered so great that
the Soviets paid as many as 2 million
lives to push the German Invaders away
from it and for all of these Myriad
reasons Putin's Russia calculated the
NATO's Promises of Georgia's membership
in the alliance at the Bucharest Summit
in April of 2008 were simply
unacceptable and they began preparing
for war War a few months later in August
of 2008 fighting broke out between South
oian separatist forces in the Georgian
Army and Russia seized on the
opportunity it presented by launching a
fullscale land sea and air invasion of
Georgia in the name of supposedly
protecting the south oans from a
genocide that they falsely alleged the
Georgians were carrying out in the
territory Russia claimed that their 2008
invasion of Georgia was a peacekeeping
operation the same way the NATO asserted
that their 1999 bombing of Serbia and
intervention in Kosovo was hundreds of
soldiers were killed around 200,000
people were forcibly displaced including
tens of thousands of Georgians were
ethnically cleansed and pushed out of
South oia and abazia South oia and
abazia independences were each
officially recognized by Russia and both
effectively came fully under Russian
military occupation with the
establishment of multiple Russian
military bases in each of them 20% of
Georgia's internationally recognized
territory then effectively became
extensions of Russia and Georgia reacted
by severing all diplomatic relations
with Russia which has remained the case
up until the present day Russia's
victory in the war proved to be a
strategic Boom for the kremlin's
geographic positioning around the
greater Caucasus Mountains their capture
of abazia extended Russia's control of
the Black Sea Coast established a buffer
away from their critical Port of Nova
RIS and secured firm Russian control
over the Western Coastal entrance from
Western Asia into Southern Russia while
their capture of South oia solidified
Russia's control over the entire extent
of the Roki tunnel passing through the
mountains and set the Russians up on a
strategic High Ground area only 2 km
away from the Georgian Military Road
pass which could enable Russian forces
to easily sever the road in the event of
a crisis and effectively shut down all
possible Overland travel routes from
Western Asia to Southern Russia it also
plac Russian forces within very close
Striking Distance of the Baku tii Sean
oil pipeline then almost runs right up
against South oian territory meaning
that if they wanted to in the event of a
crisis it would be very easy for Russia
to sever the pipeline in a eliminate
what is today a vital oil and gas artery
for Europe further still South oia's
control enabled Russian tanks and
artillery to position themselves fewer
than 50 km or only about 30 m away from
the Georgian capital of tibilisi a gun
permanently pointed to Georgia's head to
not continue advancing its relations
with the West again or
else after the disaster of the 2008 War
Miko sakashi lost the next Georgian
presidential election to the reclusive
billionaire bidzina Ian asvi and his
newly founded Georgian Dream party
Georgian Dream has remained in power in
Georgia ever since and while even
Ashville only served as the country's
official leader for a single year from
2012 to 2013 he has been widely believed
to have maintained his power over the
party and the leaders they've appointed
to govern in Georgia behind closed doors
ever since Ian ASV was born into poverty
in Soviet Georgia but he relocated to
Moscow in the 1980s and managed to
emerge as a newly minted oligarch in the
mining and banking Industries during the
gangster ridden chaos of Russia in the
1990s before eventually returning back
to his native Georgia again today
iashvili is by far the wealthiest man
alive in Georgia with an estimated net
worth of approximately $6 billion US
which is roughly equivalent to a third
of Georgia's entire annual GDP he ran on
a campaign in 2012 of balancing
Georgia's complicated relationship
between Russia and the west and
positioned himself with his Decades of
Prior experience in business relations
with Russia as a guaran of further
stability while he painted miky sakashi
as being a two pro Western figure who
would only continue exacerbating
tensions with Moscow that could provoke
Another War the strategy proved very
effective and in the years since then
the Georgian Dream is argued that in
order for Georgia to ever become
accepted into institutions like the EU
and NATO the country requires stable and
normalized relations with Russia first
so that the West doesn't ever believe
that Georgia will drag them into a war
the party paid lip service to continuing
with Georgia's bids to join nato in the
EU but in reality carried out very
little actual efforts to pursue them as
it sought to repair the shattered
relationship with Russia first meanwhile
Georgia's geopolitical position to the
West has grown increasingly more
important since the Georgian Dream took
over between 2008 and 2020 approximately
$45 billion was invested into developing
a series of natural gas pipelines
connecting the massive gas fields of
aeran with Europe that has become known
as the southern gas Corridor and just
like the previous Baku tibilisi Sean oil
pipeline that came before it the
southern gas Corridor routes through
Georgia instead of Armenia due to AER
Ban's opposition of having it routed
through their arch rival Armenia azan's
direct natural gas exports to Europe
through the southern gas Corridor began
only in 2020 and then the route became
even more critically important in 2022
after the Russians invaded Ukraine and
Europe decided to rapidly shift their
previously High Imports of Russian oil
and gas to Alternative providers instead
aeran with its massive gas fields in the
Caspian Sea and the existing
infrastructure and relationships already
in place was one of the most logical
alternatives for the Europeans to court
for additional supplies and as a result
aeran pledged to double their
pre-invasion gas exports to Europe
through the southern gas Corridor by
2027 by which point if all else remains
equal aeran will be providing the
European Union with as much as 6 to 7%
of their entire natural gas consumption
through the pipeline that runs through
Georgia which dramatic Ally increases
Georgia's strategic significance to the
west and so that largely explains why
the European Union finally granted
Georgia their long- awaited candidacy
status just a few months ago in December
of 2023 and now Russia would like to
keep Georgia out of joining the EU and
NATO for very similar reasons as they
did back in 2008 but they also have even
more reasons to prevent Georgia from
aligning too closely with the West today
too with the Russian Navy suffering
heavy losses to the ukrainians since the
War Began in 2022 the Russian Black Sea
fleet has been largely driven out of its
traditional bases in Crimea and forced
to relocate itself to Novar on the black
Sea's Eastern Rim well there has been
much discussion about expanding the
Black Sea fleet's presence in abazia
with a proposed new deep waterer base
that could end up being constructed here
at oam chire which would Place Russian
naval assets based there out of range of
most of Ukraine's weapons while still
enabling them to continue operating in
the Black Sea region developing the
ported oam chire would serve a dual
purpose of objective for the Kremlin
because it would also jeopardize the
eu's plans to assist Georgia with
developing their own nearby deep water
Port here at anoca as it currently
stands now Georgia doesn't have any deep
water ports which means that only
smaller displacement ships can carry
goods from the country's two primary
ports at Batumi and Podi which severely
restricts the volume of goods the
Georgian ports are capable of actually
exporting if aoco was therefore
developed into the country's first
proper deep water Port it could handle
substant stantially larger cargo
container vessels than what is currently
possible which would enhance Georgia's
ability to export large volumes of
products which would greatly enhance
Georgia's geopolitical location at the
epicenter of what is being called the
middle Corridor trade route a proposed
Trade Network of freight Railways
highways ports and faeries connecting
China with Europe by land without having
any part of the route traveling through
Western geopolitical opponents like Iran
or Russia or aarian Turkish geopolitical
opponents like Armenia this makes
Georgia the absolute Lynch pin in making
the middle corridor route actually
viable as the transformation of aoca
into a deep waterer Harbor would open up
the ability for Chinese manufactured
goods to travel over land to the port
and then get moved on mass aboard large
cargo container vessels the rest of the
way to markets in Europe all while
avoiding Russia Iran and Armenia in the
process in addition to all of the
critical oil and gas pipelines from the
Caspian Sea to Europe that runs through
Georgia this makes Georgia an absolutely
critical space for the Europeans to
consider having aligned on their side
and it's why the Europeans are very
interested in helping the Georgians with
developing this deep waterer port at a
noleia EU companies as well as Chinese
companies have all staked out bids to
construct the port while the Russians
would clearly prefer the Chinese to
construct and develop the port over the
Europeans in order to ensure Chinese
influence and control over the entire
length of the middle Corridor trade
route Russia might even simply prefer
that AA never be developed at all in
order to just block the middle corridor
routes viability entirely and force
Europe to continue relying either on the
Northern Corridor land route that runs
through Russia or the much longer
Southern Maritime route through the Suez
Canal or around the Cape of Africa and
what better way to shut the ports
prospects down than by constructing a
brand new naval base in abazia at oire
only 36 km away from it that could
become a target of the war in Ukraine
Georgia has entertained both sides in
the port's development and Georgia is
well aware of their increased
geopolitical value to both the and to
Russia since 2022 it may even be
possible that the Georgian Dream
government has weaponized the prospect
of them drawing closer to Russia and
China in order to Simply exert more
leverage on Western countries and
companies to get better terms out of
them on ania's development and ownership
but now with the imminent passing of the
georan dreams new foreign influence law
in the country that could enable the
government to crack down on opposition
media outlets and suppress descent
Georgia's geopolitical future has never
been more up in the air as it is now the
EU and NATO have both heavily criticized
the law and have said that his passing
is incompatible with their values which
jeopardizes Georgia's ability to align
itself with the west and might push the
government to move even further than it
already has into the camp of Russia and
China it's also conceivably possible
that the widescale protests going on in
Georgia right now against the law could
eventually evolve into a Georgian
version of the maidon Revolution that
exploded in Ukraine back in 2014 that
toppled what was then Ukraine's deeply
pro-russian government but if something
like that were to happen again in
Georgia today it is almost a certainty
that the moment it appeared the Jordan
dream party was about to lose its grip
on power the Kremlin would calculate
that another military intervention into
the country to support them would become
necessary Moscow would almost certainly
attempt to label any potential Revolt in
Georgia as a us and Ukraine backed color
revolution in coup and then they would
use that as a pretext to justify sending
in soldiers again in support of the
government and just because the Russian
armed forces are massively bogged down
at the moment in Ukraine doesn't mean
that Moscow wouldn't have the bandwidth
to also send in an intervention in
Georgia there is very very high
precedent for Russia doing things like
this going back to their 2014
intervention in Ukraine After the maidon
Revolution When They seized Crimea their
2020 intervention into bellus to help
quash pro-western protests that erupted
against the Belarusian dictator
Alexander lucenko and their January 2022
intervention into Kazakhstan to help
quash anti-government protests that
interrupted there as well approximately
2,000 Russian soldiers had been deployed
to negoro kabak between Armenia and
aeran as peacekeepers but after aeran
overran the territory in September of
2023 and the Armenian government
collapsed there the Russians suddenly
announced in April of 2024 that they
would be withdrawing all 2,000 of their
troops from the area and it's anyone's
best guess where they might end up
getting redeployed to potentially to
Ukraine or to potentially monitor the
evolving situation in Georgia if Russia
had the excuse to launch an intervention
into Georgia again today they could
deliberately sabotage the major oil and
gas pipelines in Georgia connecting AER
Ban's fields to Europe which would
eliminate a huge amount of Europe's
energy supplies and apply significantly
higher economic and inflationary
pressures on Europe in the process they
could also claw out a land bridge to
their theoretical CST Ally Armenia and
establish a continuous land connection
all the way to Iran in the process who
is increasingly becoming a close
economic and military ally of Russia's
today and would also guarantee that the
middle Corridor trade route project
between the west and China would be
forever a dead and buried idea enhancing
their own leverage on Europe to come
back to relying on their own Northern
Corridor trade route instead since the
Georgian Dream party often tries to
portray themselves as the Agents of
stability between the East and the west
and the only thing that stands between
the Georgian people and another Russian
invasion the Kremlin might also reason
that another major intervention into
Georgia could serve the purpose of
effectively sh in the Georgian
population into falling back in line
with their own increasingly
authoritarian and pro-russian government
in the end Georgia's future is a deeply
uncertain one right now and it remains
to be seen how the country's geography
will continue affecting its complicated
Destiny between East and West going
forward now there's a lot of data that
goes into producing these kinds of
videos whether it's showing the
percentages of Georgians who wish to
join the European Union why Russia is so
concerned about controlling the greater
Caucasus Mountains range how much of the
world's oil and gas reserves can be
found around the Caspian Sea and how the
Europeans and Western energy companies
chose to Route their pipelines from the
area the ability to visualize raw data
like this on the map is exactly what
makes learning so fascinating to me and
it's why the exploring data visually
course is one of my favorite courses
that I've ever taken with this video
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