Georgian, European Union and NATO flags are seen in Tbilisi, Georgia on September 23, 2025. (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
NurPhoto via Getty Images
Last month, dozens of heads of state, defense ministers, policymakers, and defense experts traveled to Ankara for the 2026 NATO Summit. During the two-day event, representatives from NATO’s 32 member states discussed defense spending. They also focused heavily on NATO’s work to strengthen the defense industrial base and improve defense manufacturing. Finally, the Alliance continued to pledge its support for Ukraine, with several NATO members announcing new defense aid packages.
Noticeably absent from the summit, however, was Georgia. Since the 2008 NATO Summit, the Alliance has regularly engaged with Georgia as a country aspiring to join the organization. NATO established the NATO-Georgia Commission in 2008 to strengthen relations with Georgia as the Alliance looks to guide Georgia’s reform efforts and Euro-Atlantic aspirations. Then, in 2010, NATO created a liaison office in Georgia to further support reform efforts. As a NATO partner, Georgia has also regularly participated in NATO military training and exercises.
But this year, Georgian media reported that representatives from the Georgian government were not present at the 2026 NATO Summit. The Ankara Summit Declaration, issued at the conclusion of the summit in Turkey this July, also made no mention of Georgia or NATO’s engagement and support for this country. In fact, the last time Georgia was mentioned in a NATO declaration was after the 2024 Washington Summit, where NATO called on Russia to withdraw its forces from Georgia. Since then, Georgia has not been mentioned in declarations following the 2025 and 2026 NATO Summits.
“The growing distance between Georgia and NATO should be seen through interconnected lenses: Georgia’s democratic backsliding and a broader geopolitical reorientation that has increased Russia’s influence over the country’s strategic direction,” Eto Buziashvili, a Research Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, told me in an interview. “Ruling Georgian Dream’s authoritarian consolidation, retreat from the country’s previously declared Euro-Atlantic trajectory, anti-Western rhetoric, and policies increasingly aligned with Russia’s strategic interests have made meaningful political integration increasingly difficult.”
When asked about NATO’s relationship with Georgia last year, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said that he was “highly worried” about democratic backsliding in Georgia. Additionally, the 2025 NATO Secretary General’s Annual Report, published in March of this year, stated that, following the aftermath of the 2024 Georgian parliamentary elections, “elements of NATO-Georgia cooperation were reprioritised.” Nonetheless, the Alliance reaffirmed that “defence cooperation with the Georgian Defence Forces progressed.”
Meanwhile, following the conclusion of the 2026 NATO Summit and the Georgian government’s absence from the two-day event, former Georgian Ambassador to NATO Levan Dolidze said that, at one time, “Georgia was NATO’s most valuable partner.” Now, Georgia’s status has been “called into question.”
Similarly, former Georgian Minister of Defense Tinatin Khidasheli wrote on her Facebook page that Georgia was “excluded from partnership events [with NATO] due to democratic backsliding.” She added that NATO-Georgia relations are now “effectively frozen.”
Georgia’s distancing from NATO, as well as the European Union, has been apparent under Georgian Dream, the ruling political party in Georgia. Following the 2024 Georgian parliamentary elections, Georgian Dream suspended its accession talks with the EU. Additionally, Georgian Dream closed its information center on NATO and the EU. Georgian Dream founder Bidzina Ivanishvili also argued that integration with NATO and the EU could force Georgia into a war with Russia (although the Russian Federation has occupied roughly 20% of Georgian territory since the Russia-Georgia War in August 2008).
“I think the recent distance in relations follows the pattern of Georgian Dream’s foreign policy, especially since 2022, so this is not an isolated NATO-related story,” Giorgi Beroshvili, an editor at New Eastern Europe magazine, told me in an interview. “Frozen EU talks, rhetoric about ‘global war party’, being left off the recent summit’s agenda for the first time in over a decade. It adds up.”
In response to Georgian Dream’s actions, members of the Georgian opposition and Georgian citizens have gathered across the country to protest Georgian Dream. Unlike the ruling party in Georgia’s government, the opposition and Georgian citizens support integration efforts with NATO and the EU. According to a poll conducted by the Institute of Social Studies and Analysis last year, 74% of Georgians surveyed support NATO membership, and 86% support Georgia’s accession efforts to the EU.
Georgian citizens have also called for democratic reforms in the country. Since the parliamentary elections in October 2024, Georgians have organized daily protests, which continue to this day. The protestors have accused Georgian Dream of “drawing on methods long associated with authoritarian practices in Russia.” The protestors are hopeful that their demonstrations will lead to new parliamentary elections and the restoration of Georgia’s integration efforts with NATO and the EU.
While political engagement between NATO and Georgia has strained over the past few years, military cooperation between the two remains. In May, Georgia took part in Trojan Footprint, a U.S.-led military exercise that brings together “Allies and partners to build interoperability, strengthen readiness, and reinforce NATO’s collective defence posture.” This cooperation suggests that while NATO-Georgia relations are fragile, defense-level engagement between the two groups has not been fully severed.
“Georgia’s modern military doctrine, training, institutional development and interoperability have been built through cooperation with NATO and individual Allied countries. NATO interoperability is embedded in Georgian doctrine, professional education, exercises and defense institutions,” Buziashvili told me. “Political integration has stalled, but elements of military interoperability with NATO continue to operate on inertia through long-standing frameworks and joint exercises.”
Despite this, Buziashvili added that Georgia’s lack of participation at last month’s 2026 NATO Summit in Turkey “should be interpreted as a serious warning about Georgia’s growing isolation, but not yet as NATO formally closing the door to Georgia.” She also noted that the “deterioration [between Georgia and NATO] was already visible at the 2024 and 2025 [NATO] Summits.”
Beroshvili agreed, pointing to a disconnect between what Georgian Dream has publicly stated and how Georgia’s defense institutions actually operate. “There’s a clear gap between the political rhetoric we see daily, and actual defence trajectory,” he told me. “Georgia still hosts and participates in NATO joint exercises,” Beroshvili said, noting the country took part in two exercises in 2026. He added that convergence toward NATO standards “has been built into the defence forces over the years, even decades,” making it unlikely to be reversed even as political ties between NATO and Georgia are fragile. “NATO standards are still considered superior, despite the political talk,” he said.
Now, with the conclusion of the 2026 NATO Summit in Turkey last month, NATO leadership and Alliance members will shift their focus to the next set of meetings scheduled for this autumn. As NATO members and partners prepare for these events, geopolitical observers, policymakers, and defense experts will be curious to see how the NATO-Georgia relationship evolves. Time will tell whether Georgian Dream will shift its approach to integration efforts and engagements with NATO, or if the ruling party in Georgia will opt to further distance itself from the Alliance.