The ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party has turned increasingly authoritarian over the past few years. Faced with a worsening security environment, local legitimacy concerns, and growing international isolation, the party increasingly tied its foreign policy alignment choices to its domestic needs. It nourished the relationships that boosted its legitimacy and contested those that threatened its domestic rule.
Several foreign policy alignment patterns emerged as a result. First, Georgian ruling elites abandoned the West as a balancing option against Russia, instead seeing its former partnerships as principal threats to regime survival. Secondly, it chose security bandwagoning with Russia, along with economic accommodation meant to further aid regime survival. Third is transactional and legitimacy-enhancing engagements with the rest of the world — primarily with China, but also with states in the immediate neighborhood and beyond.
While GD seems to have so far managed to retain power, it has yet to achieve the ideal multi-aligned state it claims to pursue. The European Union (EU) keeps resisting Tbilisi’s calls to engage without democratic conditionality; the U.S. has yet to clearly respond to Tbilisi’s calls for a reset; bandwagoning with Russia has hit clear limits amid the continued occupation of Georgian regions; and relations with the rest of the world, including China, have served as legitimacy-enhancers rather than achieving genuine strategic depth.
More alarmingly, however, this search risks undermining the country’s foreign policy autonomy, limiting its room for geopolitical maneuver amidst the global uncertainty.
Authors: Irakli Sirbiladze, Tamta Bezhanishvili, and Luka Danelia
Georgia’s Past Alignments
Georgia has often defied ideal-type foreign policy alignment categories such as bandwagoning, balancing, neutrality, or hedging. After initial bandwagoning with Moscow in the early 1990s, Georgia has embraced growing alignment with the West. Facing Russian threats and lacking internal capabilities, the country has pursued a NATO membership goal to balance against Moscow. This balancing behavior persisted despite Russia’s aggression in 2008 and a continued absence of Western security shelter.
Since coming to power in 2012, Georgian Dream has embraced both bandwagoning and balancing strategies. Even while seeking economic normalization with Russia and avoiding escalatory language, the memories of war and continued occupation of its territories limited the extent to which Tbilisi could bandwagon with Moscow. Balancing logic has persisted as the GD continued political and military cooperation with the West.
Georgian Dream chose regime survival over consolidating democracy and pursuing Georgia’s Western integration.
That changed with Russia’s full-scale aggression on Ukraine in 2022, which altered the Georgian Dream calculus. To navigate international constraints and weakening domestic legitimacy, the party hardened its bandwagoning with Moscow while softening its strategy to balance against Russia through the West. Tbilisi also sought political partnerships beyond Russia and the West, with a multi-alignment strategy in mind to hedge against uncertainties.
What remained certain, however, was that Russia was still the principal threat to the country’s security, leaving Georgia moving back and forth between bandwagoning and balancing options.
Changing Alignments in Changing Context
In the years that followed, Georgian Dream’s foreign policy alignment choices came to reflect changing domestic and international environments.
At home, Georgian Dream has faced an acute legitimacy crisis amid growing autocratization and an anti-Western turn. Internationally, Russian revisionism forced Georgian Dream to make a choice between accommodating or contesting Moscow. The EU’s revived enlargement policy, which links accession progress to democratic reforms, threatened Georgian Dream’s hold on power. The party’s response featured more Westlessness in foreign policy, a hardened bandwagoning with Russia, and an increased engagement with actors beyond Russia and the West.
- West(-lessness): From a balancing partner to a political threat
Georgian Dream’s autocratization and the Ukraine war context have strained Tbilisi’s close ties with the EU and the US.
The relationship with the EU is now at its historic low. Georgian Dream’s stark disregard of the EU’s democratic conditionality since 2022 has resulted in a frozen accession process and the suspension of high-level political dialogue between Tbilisi and Brussels in 2024. The political ties with individual EU member states and the UK also suffered. Georgian Dream kept accusing Brussels of domestic meddling and of pushing the country into war with Russia.
The partnership with Washington has been similarly tainted. In response to Georgian Dream’s growing assault on democracy, the Biden administration has imposed sanctions on the ruling party’s billionaire founder, Bidzina Ivanishvili, and suspended the strategic partnership with the country late in 2024. The Trump administration has not so far reversed the Biden-era decisions. In parallel, the Trump administration’s peace agenda between Armenia and Azerbaijan has taken Georgia out of the geopolitical spotlight, despite Washington’s limited engagement with Tbilisi on connectivity projects and security.
Georgia stands as a cautionary reminder that when ruling elites fail to uphold a geopolitical balancing act in a fractured international order, the gradual loss of a country’s autonomy could be the ultimate price.
Attempts to fundamentally refresh ties with the U.S. have yet to bear fruit: while the past year saw revived contacts between Tbilisi and Washington, those visits also demonstrated that the aspired “reset” came with its conditions: the Trump administration requested political stability underpinned by political pluralism and a friendly environment for American business, clashing with the Georgian Dream’s autocratic agenda. While the launch of the Trump Tower project in Tbilisi shows Georgian Dream seeking a transactional bargain with Trump, its bearing on official Washington’s policy toward Georgia remains unknown.
Georgia’s broader foreign policy and security alignment with the West similarly suffered. Tbilisi’s alignment rate with the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) is in decline while its participation in the EU’s international missions has been suspended since 2023. Georgia no longer receives EU defense support, and the country remains outside the emerging European security architecture. Although limited defense and security cooperation with Washington and NATO continues, the scale and scope of practical cooperation is significantly downgraded. This leaves Georgia without a balancing partner or a potential European security shelter against growing Russian threats.
- Russia: security bandwagoning with economic benefits
The Ukraine war led Georgian Dream to embrace a hardened security bandwagon with Russia. The party’s leadership has consistently declared that they are staying militarily out of the war and refused to impose bilateral economic sanctions on Russia. They also abstained from deepening security cooperation with the West. GD chose to stay under the radar instead of taking full advantage of emerging security thinking in the West.
This accommodating posture with Moscow came with its economic perks. Georgian Dream deepened its trade and economic ties with Moscow and refused to close airspace to Russian air companies. The Georgian economy benefited from the growing influx of Russian immigrants. Georgia has experienced strong economic growth during 2022-2025, allowing the ruling party to govern amid suspended Western financial support.
At the same time, while remaining formally compliant with Western sanctions imposed on Russia, Tbilisi kept drawing scrutiny by drastically increasing Russian oil imports and faced allegations of refining it to export it to the outside world. The scrutiny led to the conditional inclusion of the Kulevi Oil Refinery in the EU’s 21st sanctions package against Russia.
In a turbulent and transitional world order, small states face a difficult task of pursuing balanced relationships with all competing powers to maintain both security and autonomy. Driven by party interests, Georgian Dream leadership is failing the task.
Georgian Dream also followed Kremlin narratives in contesting the West. While the party has formally and selectively endorsed resolutions supporting Ukraine, it has waged persistent anti-Western disinformation campaigns mirroring Russian disinformation narratives and portraying the West as undergoing an economic and identity crisis. Georgian Dream’s consistent use of conspiracy theories – including the instrumentalization of the peace narrative – to manipulate domestic audiences has amplified Russia’s own anti-Western agenda. The party’s recent campaign to “nip Russophobia in the bud” not only mirrors the Kremlin’s talking points, but also exposes the country to Russia’s future claims of “defending” its citizens living in Georgia.
Still, the history of the 2008 war, ongoing Russian occupation, and Moscow’s recognition of Georgian regions as “independent states,” coupled with persistent anti-Russia and pro-Western attitudes among Georgians, tie Georgian Dream’s hands in pursuing a full political thaw with Moscow. The party has refrained from restoring diplomatic relations with Russia or joining the 3+3 initiative, which excludes the West and brings Turkey, Russia, and Iran together with South Caucasus states.
The Georgian Dream leadership acknowledges the political costs of formalizing ties with Moscow, as a confident majority of Georgians continue to support EU integration and see Russia as a political threat. These constraints and regime survival calculations thus force the Georgian Dream to value the status quo over an open political tilt toward Moscow.
- Beyond West and Russia: GD’s legitimacy-enhancing and transactional engagements
Georgian Dream has engaged in legitimacy-enhancing and transactional partnerships with China, Iran, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Central Asian states, and the South Caucasus neighborhood.
Relations with China have been expanding, offering Georgia’s ruling party legitimacy gains rather than possessing true strategic value for the country. The ties between Beijing and Tbilisi were upgraded with a trade agreement in 2017, elevated to a strategic partnership in 2023, and to a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2026. China is Georgia’s important trade partner; bilateral exchanges between political elites are frequent, while the visa-free regime allows people-to-people movement. Tbilisi has aligned with China’s stance on Taiwan as well as Beijing’s global initiatives regarding development, security, and civilizational values.
Still, the relationship lacks genuine strategic depth. China prioritizes close ties with Russia over Georgia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty concerns. In 2026, Beijing exited the strategically important Anaklia Deep Sea Port project, despite the Chinese-Singaporean company winning a bid two years earlier. The defense and security partnership between the two countries is practically non-existent, while China’s societal influence in Georgia remains limited. Growing political alignment with Beijing serves as a legitimacy enhancer for the ruling party – used primarily to showcase its partnership with a major global player amid Western isolation – rather than constituting a genuine strategic partnership.
Georgian Dream also increased political engagement with anti-Western and Russia-aligned Iran. The Georgian prime minister and president visited Iran in 2024 and 2026 to attend state events, including the funeral of the late Ayatollah Khamenei. Domestically, analysts have raised alarms over an enabling environment for pro-Iranian networks. Economically, the formal trade between Tbilisi and Tehran is limited, not counting the recent spike in motor car exports, while the US sanctions on Iranian airlines – which Tbilisi enforced – will likely limit the people-to-people movement. The US sanctions on Georgia-registered crypto firms expose the country to the risk of being seen as facilitating sanctions evasion.
Growing political alignment with Beijing serves as a legitimacy enhancer for the ruling party – used primarily to showcase its partnership with a major global player amid Western isolation – rather than constituting a genuine strategic partnership.
However, the war in Iran in 2026 showed the limits of Georgia’s engagement with the country. Tbilisi’s contacts with Washington, as well as the decision to allow US military transport planes to land during American strikes on Iran and to comply with the US’s recent sanctions on airlines, caused Tehran’s irritation. A series of vague statements by the Iranian ambassador – widely perceived as threats in Georgia – has stirred controversies in Tbilisi. Despite this, the Georgian Dream is likely to continue political engagement with Tehran, putting Georgia out of sync with the West.
Georgia’s ruling party further extended its diplomacy across the South Caucasus neighborhood, Central Asia, and the Gulf to project legitimacy and secure economic lifelines. Bilateral ties with neighboring Armenia and Azerbaijan have remained largely untainted, reflecting the neighborhood that values practical stability over democratic standards. Georgian Dream upped its connectivity cooperation with Azerbaijan while being watchful of alternative transit projects such as the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP).
Georgian Dream’s engagement with Central Asian states reached historic highs. Since 2024, the ruling party officials have held high-level meetings and visits across Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan to strengthen trade ties, promote Georgia’s role in the Middle Corridor project, and signal the country’s irreplaceable standing when it comes to the connectivity agenda. Georgian Dream’s engagement with the UAE, signing controversial logistics and real estate deals, also features similar transactionality. Overall, these partnerships appear to give the ruling party both economic and legitimacy gains amid its isolation in the West.
Party Above Country?
Georgia’s foreign policy behavior offers an example of its governing party reshaping state interests to ensure longevity in power. That imperative has come at the cost of Georgia’s national interest, starkly limiting the country’s geopolitical options in an increasingly challenging global environment. In a turbulent and transitional world order, small states face a difficult task of pursuing balanced relationships with all competing powers to maintain both security and autonomy. Driven by party interests, Georgian Dream leadership is failing the task.
Three episodes illustrate the trend:
First, Georgian Dream chose regime survival over consolidating democracy and pursuing Georgia’s Western integration. Rather than advancing the country’s constitutionally embedded European integration through allowing genuine political pluralism and cooperating with civil society, the party chose to suppress critics, opposition, civil society, and media. What resulted is not only deteriorated ties with the West, but also the undoing of Georgia’s past progress toward democratic development. Tensions with Brussels are even affecting Georgia’s leadership bid in international organizations such as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
Second, Georgian Dream’s accommodation of Moscow serves the party rather than the country, as it limits Georgia’s autonomy in the longer run. Economic gains from the party’s engagement with Russia strengthened its ability to foster loyalties, while its authoritarian reliance on and learning from the Russian autocratic ecosystem allowed it to target opponents. But by cultivating various dependencies on Moscow while contesting its Western allies, Georgian Dream leadership leaves Georgia exposed to Russian influence while denying the country necessary maneuverability at times of geopolitical and geoeconomic uncertainties. Fresh reports of Moscow suspending the imports of key Georgian products may illustrate this vulnerability.
Third, the ruling party has utilized Georgia’s historic transit identity as a bargaining chip to ensure regime survival. The Georgian Dream has so far been unsuccessful in securing such a bargain with the West. Georgia’s strategic transit location alone is failing to trump the EU’s enforcement of enlargement conditionality, while Washington is placing a premium on the TRIPP project – the result of the rapprochement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Unbound by enlargement conditionality, the EU has embraced high-level engagements with Yerevan and Baku regarding connectivity, limiting Georgia’s leverage. While existing routes through Georgia still retain significant value, domestic political instability and isolation from the West deny the country the ability to sit at the connectivity table.
Friend of All, Friend of None?
The domestic legitimacy crisis, external pressures of the war in Ukraine, and the EU’s revived enlargement process have turned the Georgian Dream increasingly authoritarian at home and daring in its foreign policy engagements. In that process, Georgia’s ruling elites have fundamentally blurred the line between partisan and national interests. But the genius formula of ensuring regime survival while seeking multi-alignment — or what the party calls “pragmatic” foreign policy — came with its clear limits.
Tbilisi’s attempts to pursue a transactional partnership with the West amid explicitly expressed Westlessness have yet to bear fruit. Local context also continues to pressure Georgian Dream against restoring formal political ties with Moscow or joining Russian-led international platforms. Severed politico-security ties with traditional Western allies and increasing cultivation of economic and political dependencies on Russia and China have denied Georgia necessary geopolitical maneuverability amid global turbulence. At the same time, protracted political instability has relegated the country to the geopolitical margins, further weakening Georgia’s traditional leverage as a transit actor connecting East and West.
Today, Georgia stands as a cautionary reminder that when ruling elites fail to uphold a geopolitical balancing act in a fractured international order, the gradual loss of a country’s autonomy could be the ultimate price.
Irakli Sirbiladze is a foreign policy analyst and visiting lecturer at Tbilisi State University.
Tamta Bezhanishvili is a recent graduate in International Relations from Tbilisi State University.
Luka Danelia is a recent graduate in International Relations from Tbilisi State University.