A series of notable analytical essays recently published in Foreign Affairs—by authors including Mark Leonard, Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Richard Fontaine, and Justin Bronk—paints a bleak yet sobering picture of global security. Their core message is straightforward: the old rules-based international order is gone, and no stable new architecture is emerging to take its place. Instead, we are entering an era of protracted disorder, where crises cascade rapidly across domains, trade and transit corridors are weaponized, and great-power security guarantees become increasingly conditional and transactional.
Meanwhile, as the West remains consumed by domestic polarization and crises in the Middle East, authoritarian states—Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea—are achieving unprecedented military, intelligence, and technological coordination without the need for formal alliances. For the Caucasus and the Black Sea region, this means Russia is no longer an isolated actor; it is backed by the combined resources of this "Axis of Upheaval," at a time when U.S. attention and military stockpiles are stretched thin across multiple fronts. In such an environment, the survival of a small state cannot rest merely on invoking the old rules or waiting for a great power to risk its own security on our behalf.
To borrow Mark Leonard’s metaphor, states today must act not as "architects" who rely on global rules and idealized institutional designs, but as "artisans"—operating pragmatically, flexibly, and making the utmost use of available resources. Yet in Georgia’s reality, an "artisan" strategy has clear limits. Middle powers like Turkey, India, or Brazil can afford to bargain equally with every geopolitical pole, but for a partially occupied small state, boundless "multi-vectorism" and chaotic hedging can prove a fatal trap. If every side concludes that you are loyal to no one, you will find yourself entirely alone when a crisis strikes. Moreover, artisanal pragmatism must not become a pretext for unprincipled concessions or capitulation; any tactical flexibility must be anchored in unmistakable red lines.
Accordingly, the first principle of Georgia’s survival is combining a single primary anchor with flexible partnerships. We need one firm institutional anchor—namely, integration with the European Union, which for Georgia is not merely a legal formality, but the sole long-term guarantee of access to a viable market, financial stability, and sustainable development. Only by standing on this solid foundation should we build pragmatic, multi-layered partnerships with regional and global actors—including Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Central Asia, the Gulf states, and wider Asian powers.
The second pillar is turning our geography into a shield through economic diversification. In today’s world, transit hubs and strategic chokepoints are the primary currency of power. The Middle Corridor, Black Sea ports, and energy routes must be developed in a way that gives multiple powerful actors—the EU, China, Turkey, and Central Asia—a direct economic stake in Georgia’s stability. We must become an indispensable node whose disruption would prove costly to all sides. Here, however, balance is critical: excessive reliance on investments from a single country, or overdependence on the Russian market, tourism, and remittances, can be weaponized into political blackmail at any moment. Equally vital is maintaining strict financial integrity regarding international sanctions, ensuring that the country does not become a target for secondary sanctions rather than a legitimate transit hub. On this front, serious questions are already being raised regarding Georgia’s exposure to illicit financial flows and cryptocurrency movements—a vulnerability that points directly to the weakness of its state institutions.
The third dimension is building a cost-effective, asymmetric defense from the inside out. As recent conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have demonstrated, the ongoing technological revolution has given defense a new advantage. A small country cannot field a capital-intensive, massive conventional military, but it can adopt a "porcupine strategy" and a total defense framework: cheap, mass-produced drones; mobile and stationary air-defense systems; hardened underground and critical infrastructure; robust cybersecurity; strategic energy reserves; and a well-trained civilian reserve force. The primary objective of such a posture is to establish a reality in which any potential aggressor knows that a swift, low-cost military excursion is impossible—while at the same time scrupulously avoiding any step that could hand the adversary a pretext for escalation. In this regard, Georgia’s lag is both glaring and telling, whether viewed in the immediate neighborhood or the broader regional context.
Finally, and most importantly, comes domestic legitimacy and institutional resilience. While this may sound like the least "geopolitical" factor, it is in fact the cornerstone of national security. As Francis Fukuyama has long argued, a state’s true strength is ultimately determined by the quality of its institutions and the degree of public trust it commands. A deeply polarized society, a compromised judiciary, and the absence of a basic consensus on the country’s national trajectory are an adversary’s greatest weapons, rendering military intervention unnecessary to destabilize the nation from within. Furthermore, democratic backsliding alienates Western support precisely when the West itself is becoming more pragmatic and less forgiving—a deficit that no regional player can simply offset. National resilience, which has become fundamental to security in the modern world, is impossible to achieve given the current state of Georgia’s public institutions and societal cohesion.
In sum, the formula for Georgia’s survival in a chaotic world is clear: become an indispensable, mutually beneficial transit and economic hub for multiple actors; hold fast to our European institutional anchor while pursuing agile regional diplomacy around it; reduce critical dependencies on any single source; build a cost-effective, asymmetric defense; and, above all, safeguard domestic unity and institutional credibility—because today, that remains our cheapest and most reliable armor. At present, we possess virtually none of these components, for reasons that are all too evident. Yet without them, preserving our territory, national identity, and statehood will prove impossible.
Giorgi Antadze
18.10.2026
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