Momentum gathering behind Georgia’s relentless drive to full NATO membership

By Nigel Chamberlain, NATO Watch

Popularising NATO
 
A ‘NATO Week’ fest, held in Georgia at the start of June, was designed to build popular support for the country’s full integration into the Alliance ranks. A lavish opening ceremony was followed by a seminar, two days of briefings for Georgian journalists about NATO policies and a series of events across the country involving school children, students, and representatives of civil society and the media.
 
Georgian officials were joined by diplomatic representatives from other countries aspiring to join NATO, namely Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The aim was to raise public awareness of NATO’s integration policies and to communicate to the public details about how these aspirant members are participating in NATO-led operations. In addition, two days of high-level briefings gave Georgian journalists an overview of NATO’s history, mission and fundamental tasks; its current operations and security challenges; and its decision-making processes. Another key focus of discussions was global security in the 21st century and the importance of NATO’s partnerships, including its relations with Russia.
 
“At its core, NATO is about values and the respect of these values: democracy, human rights, rule of law. … if you wish to join our community we expect you to share them – and uphold them,” said James Appathurai, the NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia. NATO’s website reported that Georgia’s drive towards NATO membership continues to be widely supported in the country. A nationally representative sample poll taken in March 2013 revealed that 73 per cent of Georgians approve of the government’s stated goal of NATO membership.
 
The road to membership
 
The NATO-Georgia Commission (NGC) was established in September 2008 to both support Georgia following the conflict with Russia and to play a central role in supervising the process of integration. NATO Secretary General Rasmussen formally opened a NATO Liaison Office in Tbilisi in October 2010. It is considered to be “a valuable tool for assisting and supporting the reform process in Georgia and further developing bilateral cooperation”. Through NATO’s Planning and Review Process (PARP) Georgia has been able to train deployable units up to NATO standards and achieve a level of interoperable with Allied forces. 
 
The 2012 Chicago Summit confirmed that ‘Georgia will become a member of NATO’. Georgia was the largest non-NATO troop contributor to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan and provided a transit route for ISAF supplies. Georgia has also offered practical support for the post-2014 NATO mission in Afghanistan. During his visit to Georgia in September 2012, the Secretary General said: “The future is in your hands. But know this: you have a friend in NATO - and a future home in NATO.” 
 
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili met US Vice President Joseph Biden in Washington on 27 April 2013 saying afterwards that they had “an in-depth conversation on matters relating to accelerate Georgia's integration into NATO and a free trade agreement with the US”, stressing that Georgia had received such promises from President Obama last year. Speaking at the Georgian Armed Forces Day just three days later, Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili said that his country “should undertake a very vigorous step” to acquire a Membership Action Plan (MAP) from NATO in 2014.
 
Speaking at a press conference in Tbilisi alongside Speaker of the Georgian Parliament David Usupashvili on 29 April, NATO Parliamentary Assembly President Hugh Bayley said that Georgia meets many of the requirements for accession to NATO membership. Usupashvili said that he hoped that the three-day NATO Parliamentary Assembly workshop would be an important catalyst towards Georgia's integration into NATO. During a workshop session, Prime Minister Ivanishvili explained how his country planned to establish good relations with Russia while pursuing Euro-Atlantic integration. 
 
Geo-strategic position
 
Georgia is strategically situated in the South Caucasus and shares borders with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia and Turkey. The South Caucasus has significant oil and gas reserves and provides transit routes for these natural resources. Energy security is therefore a major concern for the region and for consumers in the west. A NATO background paper ‘Deepening Relations with Georgia’ states: “NATO aims to contribute to stability and in this way improve prospects for economic and social development”. The region is also known for its historic conflict over the disputed territory of Abkhazia and South Ossetia which led to a short war between Georgia and Russia in 2008. Russia is intensely hostile to Georgia’s efforts to join NATO. A new Georgian Government, elected in October 2012, initiated direct dialogue with Russia. NATO’s background paper provides a comprehensive summary of developments in Georgia since it joined the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) in 1992, on gaining independence following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
 
It was reported in April this year that Georgia was working with Turkey and Azerbaijan to encourage NATO to use the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway “the shortest and cheapest way out of Afghanistan after 2014”, according to Georgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Maia Panjikidze
 
Relations with Russia
 
The Georgian Prime Minister’s Special Representative for Relations with Russia, Zurab Abashidze, met Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Grigory Karasin, in Prague on June 5 – the third such meeting between the two diplomats. Their mandate is to re-establish and improve trade, economic, humanitarian and cultural relations. The Russian Foreign Ministry said afterwards that the meeting was constructive and a friendly atmosphere allowed the participants to move forward on number of practical issues ‘in the absence of diplomatic relations’. For example, the Verkhny Lars (Zemo Larsi)-Kazbegi border crossing point between the two countries switched to round-the-clock working mode on 1 June, talks would start in the near future about resumption of regular air and land transport connections and obstacles were being removed for enhancing contacts between business circles. Additionally, an effort was being made to introduce a more flexible approach for issuing Russian visas to enable direct contact between families and relatives.
 
Abashidze raised the ‘Borderisation’ issue - the installing of wire fences by Russian troops across the administrative boundary line of breakaway South Ossetia during which Georgia says the line was moved at many locations deeper into the Georgian-controlled areas – but it was not discussed substantively as this is part of on-going talks in Geneva and facilitated by co-chairs from the EU, UN and OSCE. 
 
In a television interview on 11 June, President Putin said that he “cannot imagine” a reversal of Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. He accepted that the issue was “a red line” for Georgia too and added that the problem should be resolved “based on respect of interests all the people living in these territories”. He said that Moscow was willing to restore relations with Georgia “in full scale” and called for cooperation between security services of the two countries in combating crime and terrorism in order to pave the way for lifting visa rules for Georgian citizens.
 
Following the NATO-Georgia Commission meeting during the June Ministerial, Secretary General Rasmussen said: "Building such fences is a violation of international law. Building fences impedes freedom of movement, it can further inflame tensions, it is simply not acceptable and we urge Russia to live up to her international obligations". An independent report commissioned by the European Union in 2009 blamed Georgia for starting the war with Russia, but said Moscow's military response went beyond reasonable limits and violated international law. Since the conflict, Moscow has recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.
 
Summer offensive
 
Also following the June Ministerial, Georgian Defence Minister Irakly Alasania told Reuters that Georgia hoped to take "another solid step" towards joining NATO at an alliance summit next year. Prime Minister Ivanishvili had a telephone call from US Secretary of State John Kerry on 7 June during which he offered his condolences over the death of seven Georgian soldiers in a truck bomb attack in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan the day before. The Prime Minister’s Office said that the Secretary of State spoke of a bilateral meeting in the near future to discuss prospects for deepening the strategic partnership between their two countries. He also encouraged Georgia to continue with its aspiration to become a NATO member state.
 
In a detailed Centre for European and North Atlantic Affairs (CENAA) analytical paper (2012), Dr Róbert Ondrejcsák explains why and how relations between Georgia and NATO are among the most complex of the Alliance’s many partnerships. He foresees three possible outcomes, post-2014:
  1. The first (and his most favourable, but not the most likely scenario), suggests that NATO’s interests are in keeping up the momentum of Georgian reforms and keeping up cooperation, including missions abroad. He suggests that the Alliance will have limited possibility to influence strategic developments in separatists regions but has strong interest in Georgia’s long-term stabilization and keeping it on track towards Western orientation. He says that this theoretical scenario should result in relatively fast achievement of NATO membership.
  2. The second, and most likely scenario, will result in positive developments in domestic affairs but status quo in external factors. Strong Russian opposition towards Georgian membership, a division of opinion by NATO members and no resolution of the conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia would leave the Alliance facing serious questions, including the credibility of its own promises. 
  3. The third (and most negative, but least likely scenario), is that a failure of democratization and transition would result in no chance of Georgian joining NATO. It is, therefore, in NATO’s interests to continue to support internal progress so that Georgia does not lose its relatively positive image as a reform-minded, rapidly developing democracy. 
While on a working trip to Poland on 14 June, the Georgian Minister of State for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Issues, Alexi Petriashvili, told reporters that members of NATO’s North Atlantic Council (NAC) and the Secretary General would visit Tbilisi and convene the next meeting of the NATO-Georgia Commission on 26 and 27 June (as confirmed on the NATO website). The website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia states: "Accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is one of the top foreign and security policy priorities of Georgia". 
 
Conclusion
 
NATO Watch’s review of developments since Ondrejcsák’s paper was written suggests that his first scenario has been adopted and is being vigorously pursued by NATO decision-makers in Brussels and Washington. However, their efforts to ‘fast-track’ Georgia for NATO membership are likely to continue to be stymied by several member states who remain wary of offering Georgia full membership. Thus, while a draft Membership Action Plan (MAP) may well be agreed at the NATO-Georgia Commission later this month, and potentially gain approval by all Member States at the next NATO Summit in 2014, this penultimate stage to full membership is likely to be a long, drawn out affair.