By Masom Jan Masomy and Eldaniz Gusseinov

Among external stakeholders, China bears the heaviest cost from the ongoing Afghanistan-Pakistan tensions along the Durand Line. The conflict erodes Beijing’s credibility as a regional mediator on the dispute-resolution front, even as its short-term containment record remains defensible. Both Afghanistan and Pakistan continue to depend on Chinese economic engagement, and both are seeking to expand investment flows from Beijing. China has hosted at least seven formal rounds of the China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Foreign Ministers’ Dialogue, its primary platform for structured mediation between the two countries and has intervened repeatedly with emergency shuttle diplomacy during acute crises, most recently during the open military confrontation.

 Photo by Crystal51, 2015

BACKGROUND:

For a state positioning itself for a more influential role in the emerging global order, mediation has become a core instrument of strategic projection. This ambition found formal expression in Beijing’s May 2025 white paper, “China's National Security in the New Era.” Released by the State Council Information Office on May 12, the document represents the first dedicated national security policy statement since the founding of the People’s Republic. Its opening chapter frames China as a source of certainty and stability in a turbulent world, and the same self-positioning runs throughout the text. By tying political security to international order within a single "holistic" framework, with economic development as the connecting axis, Beijing presents its own internal stability and modernization as stabilizing forces for the broader international system. The Afghan-Pakistan file is currently the closest test of that framing on China’s periphery.

The results have been limited. China has not resolved the underlying disputes between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and each failed mediation round makes the next one harder to frame as credible. Experts generally agree that Chinese mediation acts as a “band-aid” over structural wounds. The long-term drivers of hostility remain untouched: Islamabad’s demand that the Taliban crack down on TTP safe havens, and the historically unrecognized Durand Line that sits beneath nearly every bilateral grievance. Strategic distrust between Kabul and Islamabad has only hardened since 2021. On short-term crisis containment, however, Beijing’s record is defensible. It pulls both sides back from open war and keeps communication lines open, with the promise of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) used as an economic incentive to buy time, even when this does not produce durable agreements. For Beijing, short-term containment is “good enough” provided it prevents a regional collapse that threatens Chinese investments.

Pakistan’s declaration of “open war” on Afghanistan in late February 2026 produced significant civilian casualties across the country. On March 16, Pakistani airstrikes hit the Omid Addiction Treatment Hospital in Kabul. Afghan officials placed the death toll at approximately 400 patients, a figure that has not been independently corroborated. Human Rights Watch verified at least 143 killed and over 250 injured. Islamabad denied intentionally targeting the facility. By April 5, Taliban officials reported cumulative civilian casualties of 761 killed and 626 injured since late February, figures the United Nations has not fully verified. Prior to the hospital strike, UNAMA had documented 76 civilian deaths and 213 injuries from clashes beginning on February 26 and called for compliance with international humanitarian law.

The most recent mediation round, hosted by China in Urumqi, did not yield a permanent ceasefire between Kabul and Islamabad. It did, however, halt active kinetic conflict and keep further negotiation tracks open. Earlier mediation attempts by Qatar and Turkey, with parallel engagement from Saudi Arabia, sought to reduce escalation. Afghanistan and Pakistan have nonetheless experienced their most serious deterioration in relations since the Taliban seized power in 2021. Major trade routes at Torkham and Spin Boldak have remained closed since the October 2025 clashes, disrupting bilateral trade flows.

IMPLICATIONS:

Tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan stem largely from Islamabad’s claim that the TTP operates from Afghan territory and conducts attacks inside Pakistan. Kabul’s immediate rejection of this claim has strained the bilateral relationship since August 2021. The unresolved dispute undermines Pakistan’s capacity to control its borderlands and opens space for non-state armed groups to regroup in remote border regions, a development that also concerns regional neighbors.

In this context, China’s mediation efforts stem from deeper structural stakes, linking border security and regional connectivity. For China, any instability or rise in militant mobility across the narrow Wakhan corridor or in the Pak-Afghan region raises long-term security questions. This issue is critical to China’s implementation of transportation projects across Eurasia. Discussions between China and Central Asian states also covered the potential integration of transport projects, including proposals to connect the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, currently under construction, with Uzbekistan’s proposed Trans-Afghan railway. Under this configuration, the combined route would originate in Kashgar and, via Afghanistan and the CPEC, terminate in Gwadar. The result is a ring of Chinese influence spanning Central and South Asia. China would be positioned to integrate high-tech production supply chains along this corridor.

In such a situation, the Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP) may reorganize and reestablish itself across the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. Its propaganda has consistently identified Chinese assets as legitimate targets. The early-2026 suicide bombing at a Chinese-run restaurant in a district of Kabul reinforced these security concerns. Separately, an armed assault using grenades dropped from drones killed five Chinese nationals and injured five others near the Afghan-Tajik border in December 2025. The pattern suggests that militant groups may be finding operational space along the porous Afghan-Tajik frontier from which to threaten Chinese interests across Central Asia.

Beijing is concerned that groups such as ETIM and ISKP may exploit periods of confrontation between Kabul and Islamabad. When Afghanistan-Pakistan tensions rise, militant activity in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan tends to increase, generating a volatile environment for Chinese personnel and CPEC-related projects.

To strengthen border security, China has established three new counties within a year. The He'an and Hekang counties sit near the disputed Ladakh border with India, and the newly formed Cenling county lies close to Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The administrative restructuring is designed to expand border surveillance and constrain the movement of anti-China Uyghur militants through Xinjiang's porous frontiers. Strategically, the move tightens governance over Kashgar in Xinjiang, the urban anchor for both the Wakhan corridor and the CPEC Karakorum Highway.

CONCLUSIONS:

While South Asia and the Middle East are experiencing heightened military confrontations that strain international peace, China addresses these crises through diplomatic engagement and economic cooperation. Its official statements emphasize de-escalation through restraint rather than coercion. Diplomatic brokering between Afghanistan and Pakistan offers potential strategic advantages for Beijing at both regional and global levels. The limits of this approach, however, are visible. Following the Urumqi negotiations, border skirmishes resumed, with Pakistani strikes hitting Kunar province on 27 April 2026.

By combining formal trilateral platforms with quieter shuttle diplomacy, China positions itself as central to regional crisis management and as a hedge against the regrouping of transnational terrorist networks. The Afghanistan-Pakistan case nonetheless demonstrates that economic incentives alone are insufficient to produce durable settlements between parties locked in active confrontation.

AUTHOR’S BIO: 

Masom Jan Masomy is an Assistant Professor and Deputy Director at the Regional Studies Centre of the Afghanistan Science Academy in Kabul. His work focuses on South and Central Asian affairs with a particular emphasis on Afghanistan and on the dynamics of great power politics across the wider Central and South Asian regions. His research interests span political and economic developments, security and migration, climate change, diplomacy, and regional connectivity. Email:  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Eldaniz Gusseinov is Head of Research and co-founder at the political foresight agency Nightingale Int., and a non-resident research fellow at the Haydar Aliyev Center for Eurasian Studies of Ibn Haldun University, Istanbul. Email:  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

By Anatoly Motkin

In late April 2026, Tencent - the Chinese technology conglomerate behind WeChat - completed the acquisition of a 3.2 percent stake in Kaspi.kz, Kazakhstan's dominant super app, at approximately US$ 518 million. Just months earlier, Tencent led a financing round in Uzum, Uzbekistan's first tech unicorn, lifting the startup's valuation to US$ 1.5 billion and opening the door for the Chinese giant to enter Central Asia's digital economy. Taken together, these two moves constitute something far more consequential than routine investment decisions. They represent the arrival of Chinese digital power at the heart of post-Soviet Eurasia and Washington has yet to formulate a coherent response.

 Photo by Pixels Hunter, 2020

BACKGROUND:

Kaspi.kz is not a typical fintech startup. In Kazakhstan, it operates as a powerful super app that integrates payments, e-commerce, and consumer services into a single platform, commanding roughly 75 percent of digital payments and nearly 89 percent of e-commerce activity in its home market. Critically, the platform seamlessly integrates payments, online commerce, fintech services, travel, classifieds, and access to government services,  meaning it is directly plugged into state administrative databases. Similarly, Uzum in Uzbekistan combines e-commerce with fintech and banking services, touching millions of citizens’ financial and transactional lives daily.

The strategic logic of Tencent's acquisitions is straightforward. The investments align with strengthening economic ties between China and Kazakhstan, where Chinese investors are already backing 224 industrial projects valued at an estimated US$ 66.4 billion. But the digital dimension of this relationship is qualitatively different from physical infrastructure. When a company like Tencent acquires a meaningful stake in platforms that mediate the daily financial, commercial, and civic transactions of tens of millions of people, it gains something invaluable: structured, real-time access to population-scale behavioral data.

This is not an abstract concern. China has developed a data governance architecture predicated on domestic security, in which the party-state enjoys extensive data access power over domestic big tech companies. Under China’s National Intelligence Law of 2017, any Chinese organization or citizen must support, cooperate with, and collaborate in national intelligence work. There is no meaningful legal firewall between a Tencent minority stake in a Central Asian super apps and the Chinese state’s appetite for foreign data.

Large datasets about local populations can be transferred to China under conditions where weak local regulation provides little protection. The cautionary tale is well documented: Huawei’s provision of digital infrastructure for the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa was later found to have been transferring server contents to Shanghai every day for five years. Central Asian governments should study this precedent carefully.

Tencent’s fintech plays are only the most visible thread of a much broader Chinese digital expansion across the region. Huawei has been deeply embedded in Central Asian telecommunications networks for over a decade, building 4G and 5G backbone infrastructure across Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. The company is scaling its open source platforms OpenHarmony and openEuler to accelerate what it calls ”digital sovereignty” across Central Asia, deploying the language of sovereignty while consolidating its own architectural control over the region’s digital nervous system. Meanwhile, Alibaba Cloud has established data center operations in the region, and Chinese e-commerce platforms increasingly intermediate cross-border trade flows between China and its Central Asian neighbors under the Belt and Road Initiative.

Beijing’s Digital Silk Road initiative promotes the development of transnational network infrastructure and aims to enhance information connectivity across BRI countries - and Central Asia sits squarely at the geographic core of this project. Chinese technologies increasingly mediate social, political, and economic activities in recipient countries, creating layered dependencies that are difficult to unwind once established.

IMPLICATIONS:

The data sovereignty implications are severe. Super apps connected to government service portals do not merely capture consumer preferences, they capture identity verification records, tax filings, property registrations, healthcare interactions, and travel histories. For an intelligence service, this is not commercial data. It is a population census updated in real time.

Central Asian governments have begun to sense the risk. Kazakhstan has enacted data localization requirements. Uzbekistan has been strengthening its cybersecurity regulatory framework. But regulatory intent and enforcement capacity are very different things, particularly when the investment relationship itself creates structural dependencies and political incentives for governments to look the other way.

What can the U.S. offer as an alternative? The answer lies not in prohibition, Washington cannot tell sovereign governments whom to accept investment from, but in competition and capacity-building. Three lines of effort are essential.

First, the U.S. and its partners should actively promote alternatives in the fintech and digital infrastructure space. American and European venture capital has largely ignored Central Asia. The region’s digital markets are growing rapidly, and the vacuum left by Western investors is being filled by Chinese capital on terms that suit Beijing’s strategic interests. The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), established during President Trump’s first term and granted expanded authorities in 2025, and its European counterparts should prioritize co-investment in Central Asian digital platforms, with data governance conditions attached.

Second, Washington should expand the Pax Silica framework, the emerging U.S.-led digital technology alliance, to explicitly address data security standards for countries in the region. Establishing clear criteria for trusted digital investment, analogous to the Clean Network initiative for 5G but adapted for the fintech and super app era, would give Central Asian governments a positive framework to reference when evaluating foreign stakes in systemically important digital platforms.

Third, the U.S. government should invest in building Central Asian regulatory capacity on data governance, cybersecurity auditing, and foreign investment screening in the digital sector. Technical assistance programs through the State Department’s Digital Connectivity and Cybersecurity Partnership and bilateral cooperation agreements can help governments develop the institutional tools to assess the risks embedded in transactions like Tencent's acquisition of Kaspi.kz - before the deal is done, not after.

CONCLUSIONS:

China’s digital expansion into Central Asia is not accidental. It is a deliberate, coordinated strategy executed through commercially rational transactions that each, individually, appear benign. The Tencent–Kaspi deal will be reported as a fintech investment. The Uzum funding will be celebrated as a startup success story. But viewed in aggregate and in strategic context, they represent the systematic acquisition of data leverage over populations that sit at the intersection of China’s continental ambitions and America’s competitive blind spot. Washington needs to start paying attention, and start competing, before the architecture of Central Asia’s digital future is set in Beijing.

AUTHOR’S BIO: 

Anatoly Motkin is President of StrategEast Center for a New Economy, a leading independent institution advancing digital economy in developing countries, in collaboration with international financial institutions, development agencies, global tech companies, and governments.

By Syed Fazl-e-Haider 

A recent succession of visits by Central Asian leaders to Islamabad over the past four months has drawn attention in New Delhi. In response, India has intensified its diplomatic engagement with the Central Asian Republics (CARs) to counter Pakistan’s expanding regional influence. Indian officials have conducted discussions with counterparts from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan to strengthen economic ties. Concurrently, Pakistan has undertaken a significant policy shift by activating alternative trade corridors through China and Iran, reducing its reliance on routes via Afghanistan to access Central Asia. Despite this strategic rivalry, certain connectivity initiatives reveal areas of convergence and potential cooperation between India and Pakistan. 

 Photo by Alexander Lukatskiy, 2022

BACKGROUND:

Both India and Pakistan view post-Soviet Central Asia as a region of considerable geostrategic and geo-economic importance. Endowed with substantial hydropower capacity, the region possesses significant untapped energy reserves and critical mineral resources. For both states, primary interests in Central Asia include energy security, infrastructure development, trade, and connectivity.

India has advanced a proactive “Connect Central Asia” policy aimed at strengthening political, economic, and cultural engagement with the Central Asian Republics (CARs), Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. By 2025, India’s trade with these five states reached approximately US$ 2.5 billion, nearly three times the volume of Pakistan’s trade with the region.

Afghanistan, serving as a critical bridge between Central and South Asia, remains central to the strategic competition between India and Pakistan. Pakistan’s historical support for the Taliban has contributed to strained relations with the CARs, many of which have been wary of the Taliban’s rise due to concerns over regional stability and extremism. In contrast, CARs have often aligned with anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan.

India, during the Taliban’s first regime (1996–2001), opposed the movement and supported the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, a stance that strengthened its political alignment with the CARs. This policy brought India closer to the region, where skepticism toward Pakistan’s Afghanistan policy persisted. Although regional dynamics have evolved in recent years, India’s earlier opposition to the Taliban and its engagement with alternative Afghan actors significantly shaped its favorable ties with Central Asia.

Under the current Taliban regime, India has engaged pragmatically with Kabul amid escalating tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistan has repeatedly accused the Taliban authorities of harboring anti-Pakistan militant groups, contributing to a deterioration in bilateral relations. This conflict has prompted a notable shift in the Afghan policies of both states. Pakistan has adopted a more confrontational stance, reportedly launching Operation Ghazab lil-Haq in February to target militant sanctuaries within Afghanistan. In contrast, India has maintained a pragmatic approach, guided by a strategic calculus often characterized as “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

Simultaneously, Pakistan has extended support to the anti-Taliban National Resistance Front (NRF), formerly known as the Northern Alliance. This shift in Pakistan’s Afghanistan policy has facilitated closer alignment with the CARs, many of which remain wary of the Taliban regime.

In December 2025, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov visited Pakistan, the first such visit by a Kyrgyz leader in over two decades, marking a revival of bilateral relations. Both countries agreed to increase trade from approximately US$ 16 million in 2024 to US$ 200 million by 2027–28. In February 2026, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev undertook a two-day visit to Islamabad, during which the two sides committed to expanding bilateral trade to US$ 2 billion over the next five years. In the same month, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev also visited Pakistan, with discussions focusing primarily on developing transport corridors to provide landlocked Kazakhstan access to Pakistan’s Arabian Sea ports.

In response to the deepening economic engagement between Pakistan and CARs, India has intensified its diplomatic outreach to the region to advance trade and investment ties. In March 2026, Turkmenistan’s Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers, Baymyrat Annamammedov, and India’s Ambassador to Turkmenistan, Bandaru Wilsonbabu, held discussions in Ashgabat on expanding cooperation in industry, construction, chemicals, and fertilizers.

Concurrently, India is pursuing a proposed US$ 3 billion agreement for the import of uranium from Kazakhstan, currently under consideration by Kazatomprom, the country’s national nuclear energy agency. In addition, India’s Tata Power is reportedly nearing agreements in Tajikistan’s energy sector. 

The escalating conflict with Afghanistan has prompted Pakistan to operationalize alternative trade corridors to Central Asia via Iran and China. In April 2026, Islamabad dispatched its first shipment to Tashkent through the Gabd–Rimdan border crossing with Iran, thereby establishing a functional route toward Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Concurrently, Pakistan activated a trade corridor through China via the Khunjerab Pass, facilitating connectivity with Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan.

IMPLICATIONS:

During recent visits to Islamabad, officials from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan discussed trade and strategic connectivity initiatives aimed at linking Central and South Asia and providing landlocked Central Asian economies access to Pakistan’s seaports at Karachi and Gwadar. Geographically, Pakistan holds a comparative advantage over India in facilitating commercial access to Central Asia.

Key projects include the Uzbekistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan (UAP) railway and the China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan (CKU) railway. The UAP corridor is intended to connect Central Asia to Pakistan’s seaports via Afghanistan. Similarly, the CKU railway would enhance regional connectivity by linking China’s Kashgar to Central Asia, with onward access to Gwadar port through the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), thereby providing Central Asian states with routes to open seas.

In contrast, India faces geographical constraints in accessing Central Asia, as overland connectivity via Afghanistan would require transit through Pakistan. To circumvent this limitation, India has invested in Iran’s Chabahar Port as an alternative route to the region. Located on the Gulf of Oman, Chabahar constitutes a key node in the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC), which links India with Iran, Russia, and Central Asian states, thereby facilitating trade while bypassing Pakistan.

Islamabad no longer views Afghanistan as the principal transit route to the rest of Central Asia, largely due to security concerns. The activation of alternative trade corridors via China and Iran reflects a significant shift in Pakistan’s connectivity strategy, driven by tensions with the Taliban regime over cross-border militancy. As one senior Pakistani official noted, “The China and Iran corridors are not just alternatives anymore – they are becoming the preferred routes for regional connectivity.”

Geopolitically, India’s alignment with Israel in the ongoing Iran–Israel conflict risks undermining its strategic interests in Iran, particularly regarding the Chabahar port project. In contrast, Iran has moved closer to Pakistan amid the US–Israel war with Iran, with Islamabad positioning itself as a mediator between Washington and Tehran. Pakistan’s emerging role as a diplomatic intermediary has enhanced its geopolitical profile, including in Central Asia, a region significantly affected by instability in the Middle East.

India’s withdrawal last year from the Ayni airbase in Tajikistan, its only overseas military facility near Afghanistan, signals a decline in its intelligence capabilities and strategic influence in the region. Established in 2000, the base served as a strategic counterbalance to Pakistan’s influence and as a key platform for India’s engagement with Central Asia.

India and Pakistan have primarily competed for influence in Central Asia due to the region’s substantial energy resources. However, the viability of key energy connectivity projects depends on cooperation rather than rivalry between the two states. For example, the Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India (TAPI) gas pipeline cannot function effectively without mutual coordination, as it is designed to transport Turkmen gas to energy-deficient markets in both India and Pakistan. Similarly, the CASA-1000 hydropower project, which aims to export electricity from Central Asia to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, has the potential to transform strategic competition into convergence between the two countries.

Conversely, an armed conflict between India and Pakistan would have significant repercussions for Central Asia. A war could disrupt trade and energy corridors, undermine major connectivity initiatives such as the INSTC and CPEC, exacerbate militancy, and pose serious risks to regional stability.

CONCLUSIONS:

With their ambitious regional strategies, India and Pakistan could turn Central Asia either into a site of rivalry or a platform for cooperation. Pakistan’s shift in Afghan policy, its counterterrorism operations against militant groups under the Taliban, and its use of alternative corridors via China and Iran, bypassing Afghanistan, are key developments encouraging the CARs to favor Pakistan. From geographical and geopolitical perspectives, Pakistan may be a more viable partner for the landlocked CARs, which seek to expand trade through connectivity to Arabian Sea ports. In contrast, deteriorating India–Iran relations cast uncertainty over the future of India’s Chabahar port project.

AUTHOR’S BIO: 

Syed Fazl-e-Haider is a Karachi-based analyst at the Wikistrat. He is a freelance columnist and the author of several books. He has contributed articles and analysis to a range of publications. He is a regular contributor to Eurasia Daily Monitor of Jamestown Foundation  Email,  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

By Giorgi Gvalia and Ivane Lomidze

Georgia’s foreign policy thinking is undergoing a notable shift. For much of the past two decades, the country’s strategic discourse was framed by democratic alignment and Euro-Atlantic integration. Today, however, the rhetoric of the ruling elite increasingly reflects a geopolitical logic, emphasizing survival, insecurity, and strategic calculation over value-based commitments. This shift is understandable for a small state operating in a highly vulnerable security environment. Yet the emerging approach also reveals an important limitation. While focused on avoiding risks vis-à-vis Russia, Georgia’s leadership gives insufficient attention to the equally important need to preserve and balance relations with Western partners that remain essential to Georgia’s long-term security, prosperity, and independence.

 Photo by Czerep rubaszny, 2020

BACKGROUND:

Georgia’s foreign policy has long been associated with a clear strategic orientation toward Europe and the transatlantic community. For years, the dominant language of Georgian statecraft emphasized democratic reform, integration with Western institutions, and a value-based foreign policy identity. That discourse has not disappeared entirely, but it is no longer the main organizing principle of the ruling elite’s public messaging. Especially since Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, senior representatives of ruling Georgian Dream party have described foreign policy in much starker terms: the state must avoid steps that could trigger retaliation from Russia and must calibrate every decision with extreme caution.

This shift is rooted in Georgia’s hard security environment. Russia still occupies Abkhazia and South Ossetia and remains the overwhelmingly dominant military power in the region. The memory of the 2008 war continues to shape official thinking in Tbilisi, especially the lesson that strong Western political backing does not automatically translate into direct security protection. Against that background, the government has argued that Georgia cannot afford symbolic gestures that carry unclear benefits but potentially serious costs.

That logic was most clearly visible in the government’s refusal to impose sanctions on Russia after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Georgian officials have maintained that the country has cooperated with international efforts to prevent sanctions circumvention, but they have resisted taking additional unilateral steps that could be interpreted by Moscow as escalation. From the government’s perspective, such caution is not ideological sympathy for Russia but a practical response to Georgia’s exposed position. The argument is simple: a small country with occupied territories, no formal security guarantees, and limited means of self-defense should avoid unnecessary confrontation with a stronger and hostile neighbor.

This position has domestic resonance. Many Georgians remain deeply pro-Western, but there is also broad public sensitivity to the risks of war and instability. The government has used that sentiment to justify a foreign policy of restraint, presenting itself as the actor most capable of keeping Georgia out of the wider regional conflicts. In that sense, Georgian Dream’s message is not only strategic but political: it links restraint abroad to stability at home. The result is a more defensive and geopolitical foreign policy vocabulary than the one that dominated Georgian politics in the previous decades.

IMPLICATIONS:

The problem with Georgia’s current course is not that it recognizes geopolitical reality. Any rational Georgian foreign policy must take account of Russian power and the risks of direct confrontation. The problem, rather, is that the government appears to treat this as its overriding strategic priority, while underestimating the cost of alienating the Western partners that help Georgia offset its structural weakness. For small states, survival cannot be reduced to managing immediate threats alone. It also requires maintaining the external relationships that expand their room for maneuver and reduce the risk of abandonment.

Any viable national strategy must therefore be assessed along two dimensions simultaneously: whether it mitigates immediate threats and whether it preserves the external relationships on which long-term autonomy and resilience depend. In practice, this requires small states to reduce risks while sustaining partnerships that provide economic, political, and – over time – security support. However, recent developments suggest that Georgia’s current strategy has managed only one side of this equation. In other words, the government’s strategy appears to have minimized certain risks while simultaneously generating others. By prioritizing the avoidance of confrontation with Russia, Georgian Dream has struggled to maintain the political trust and strategic confidence of its Western partners.

Over the past years, Georgia’s relations with the West have deteriorated significantly. This trend has become increasingly visible in tensions surrounding Georgia’s EU candidacy process, the controversy over the “foreign agents” law, and growing Western criticism of the country’s political trajectory. Government officials have largely attributed this deterioration to Western pressure – particularly from the EU – for Georgia to adopt a harder line against Russia, including the imposition of unilateral sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine. However, that explanation is incomplete. Disagreements over sanctions policy alone do not account for the depth of mistrust that has emerged. Even where Tbilisi may have had legitimate reasons to resist certain Western demands, such differences could likely have been managed more effectively through sustained political engagement and clearer strategic communication. So far, Georgian Dream has not convincingly demonstrated that it has invested sufficient diplomatic effort in explaining Georgia’s security concerns to its Western partners while maintaining their confidence in the country’s broader strategic direction.

This matters because, for Georgia, relations with the West are not just symbolic. The EU remains central to Georgia’s trade, institutional modernization, and broader economic orientation. The U.S. has played a major role in strengthening Georgia’s state institutions and defense capacity. These links are not simply a matter of identity or values; they are practical assets that increase Georgia’s room for maneuver in a difficult neighborhood. If those relationships weaken, Georgia does not become more secure or more autonomous. It becomes more exposed.

The costs could rise further as the regional environment changes. Georgian policymakers have sought to position the country as a key corridor between Europe and Asia, especially through transit and connectivity projects crossing the South Caucasus. But Georgia’s geographic importance should not be taken for granted. Progress in the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process and the discussion of alternative transport routes could gradually reduce Georgia’s comparative advantage as a regional connector. If Georgia’s strategic value becomes less automatic, the quality of its political ties with Western actors will matter even more.

For Georgia, geopolitical thinking remains unavoidable. Geography and power asymmetries ensure that any responsible foreign policy must account for the risks posed by Russia. The real challenge, however, is how to apply that thinking in a way that manages immediate security threats while preserving the partnerships that remain essential for Georgia’s long-term prosperity and independence. For a small state caught between powerful neighbors and strategic partners, the art of survival lies precisely in maintaining that balance.

CONCLUSIONS:

Georgia’s foreign policy is entering a new phase defined less by idealistic rhetoric and more by the language of risk, constraint, and survival. That adjustment is understandable. Russia’s military presence on Georgian territory and the wider regional security climate leave little room for carelessness. But this approach, if applied too narrowly, can ultimately undermine its own objectives.

It is sensible to avoid policies that would impose immediate and disproportionate costs on the state. However, such caution is insufficient if it rests on the assumption that prudence vis-à-vis Russia alone can secure Georgia’s future. Over the longer term, the country’s sovereignty and prosperity remain closely tied to the preservation of robust relations with the West. If Tbilisi cannot preserve those ties while managing Russian pressure, it will trade one form of vulnerability for another. For Georgia, the central challenge of statecraft lies not merely in avoiding conflict in the present, but in doing so without eroding the external partnerships upon which its future security and development depend.

AUTHOR’S BIO: 

Giorgi Gvalia is Professor of International Relations and Jean Monnet Chair at Ilia State University in Tbilisi, specializing in small-state foreign policy, Realist IR theory, and South Caucasus geopolitics. Ivane Lomidze is Associate Professor of Sociology at Ilia State University, whose work focuses on the normative and theoretical foundations of political realism.