The USA and NATO countries are gradually losing their strategic influence in Georgia. Against this background, prospects are emerging for its rapprochement with Russia, which could become a serious geopolitical problem for Washington, notes the magazine "Newsweek", quoted by BTA.
"Despite enduring pro-Western symbolism and overwhelming popular support for joining the EU and NATO, President Vladimir Putin's Russia is on the rise, while the Georgian government's relations with the US and other Western powers are rapidly deteriorating. While Western countries have trumpeted how Russia's war in Ukraine has boosted solidarity and brought both Finland and Sweden into the NATO camp, once-membership candidate Georgia appears to have gone the other way, Newsweek found. .
The American magazine notes that the region in which Georgia is located is strategically important.
"It is located on the southern border of Russia and north of Iran, and is also a transit route for energy pipelines. Whether the West is able to keep Georgia in its own sphere of influence is being watched closely by countries weighing their options in a world where the US has lost the dominance it had at the end of the Cold War, Newsweek said. p>
"The West is losing strategic competition," told "Newsweek" Corneli Kakaccia, director of the Georgian Institute of Politics. "In the region are China, Turkey, Iran, as well as Russia.
The magazine quoted Laura Linderman of the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center as saying "Georgia moving into Russia's orbit would be a significant setback for the US, NATO and the West, with geopolitical implications that would be both strategic and symbolic." .
The relationship between the government of the "Georgian Dream" and Western countries have deteriorated sharply in recent months, although it is still committed in theory to joining the EU and NATO, according to Newsweek. The publication adds that the EU accession process was suspended by Brussels in July because of Georgia's "foreign influence" law, which was approved in May despite mass protests.
"Newsweek" believes that the protests in Georgia related to the adoption of the law "On transparency of foreign influence" have had a negative impact on the prospects for the development of relations between Tbilisi and the West. The statements of the leaders of the ruling party "Georgian Dream - Democratic Georgia" to reject Western "pseudoliberal ideologies” and the inadmissibility of Georgia's participation in military conflicts also reflect the gradual loss of US positions in the country, the publication concludes.