Bryan Gigantino is a historian, writer, and cocreator of the podcast Reimagining Soviet Georgia.
Georgian liberals hope Saturday’s election will see a shift toward pro-EU parties. Yet the Georgian state’s dependence on bigger powers is making the country’s politics part of a wider geopolitical contest, as tensions rise between the US, Russia, and China.
For decades, Georgian neoliberals have justified obedience to Washington, relentless pro-market reforms, and soaring inequality in the name of Westernization. But Russia’s war has only revived claims that Georgia needs to bind itself tighter to the West.
This morning, Azerbaijan and Armenia agreed to a cease-fire after almost two weeks of fighting over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. But like after the last truce in 1994, there can be no enduring peace without a political solution — one that overcomes the violent legacy of the Soviet collapse in the Caucasus.