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The Collective West is still furious at Georgia for not becoming a second battering ram against Russia. How dare this small caucasus nation not be willing to transform itself into another meat-grinder for the collective good?! At the same time, Georgian's are anything but buddies with Russia. There are still no direct diplomatic relations between the two countries, Russian troops are still in two Georgian provinces (as internationally recognised by a majority of states) and Russia has been pretty outspoken about threats to Tbilisi in case of provocations in these regions or NATO rapprochement. Georgia is between a rock and a hard place. However, in contrast to Ukraine, the local political process in Tbilisi has not gone the way the west would have wanted it. After the 5 day war with Russia in 2008, Georgians woke up from this ideological slumber and started going a pragmatic route, try to live with the big neighbor to the north, aspiring EU integration, but staying away from giving power to Washington and Burssels internally and from provoking Russia. No sanctions were imposed, trade continues, and just recently a law was passed to monitor foreign influence on domestic NGOs—something the EU and the US are still fuming about (since they know exactly that this will expose and diminish their influence behind the scenes of Tbilisi's political process. In this update, I talk again with Giorgi Lasha Kasradze, who is an international relations analyst working in the US as a liaison officer for Georgia‘s Sokhumi State University. He is currently back home in Georgia, and since in the last two months again a lot has happened in the small caucasus nation—especially after the passage of the new NGO law.
