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Op-Ed: Supporting Countries on the Front Lines of Democracy Essential to Fighting Rising Axis of Autocracy  

By: Laura Thornton, Senior Director of Global Democracy Programs, McCain Institute

The small country of Georgia, nestled on the far eastern outpost of Europe, at the foot of Russia, and connecting the Black Sea to the ancient spice trails to the East, has always been in geographic crosshairs and conflict. Today it also finds itself on the frontlines of our century’s evolving great power competition and the struggle between autocracy and democracy. Georgia’s relatively new democracy has been hijacked by the autocratic Georgian Dream party and its ruler oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, recently sanctioned by the U.S. for serving the interests of the Kremlin, which wants Georgia to become a pliant, subservient satellite, like Belarus.

Standing in the way of this dystopian vision are the brave Georgian people, who understand their country as European and democratic, and have been protesting daily for more than a month following fraudulent elections and the regime’s decision to postpone accession into the European Union. Standing arm in arm with these protestors, hundreds of whom have been brutally tortured by the Georgian Dream regime, is President Salome Zourabichvili, elected by popular vote in 2018, fighting with her people for Georgia’s freedom.

The Kissinger Fellowship at the McCain Institute empowers leaders to stand up for freedom and democracy. If John McCain and Henry Kissinger were here today, they would be outraged by any surrender of Georgia to autocrats. A shared dedication to freedom from tyranny drove the work of these men and was the foundation of their decades-long friendship. Therefore, when considering candidates for the 2025 Kissinger Fellow, it was very clear that the leader we sought was the courageous President Zourabichvili.

Georgia was once the West’s democratic darling in a difficult region. In 2013, power was peacefully transferred from the outgoing United National Movement party to the new Georgian Dream coalition. Democratic reforms were passed, a constitutional revision mandated Georgia’s path to European integration, and Georgian troops fought and died side by side with NATO in Afghanistan.

However, within a few years, the coalition crumbled with the more reform-minded parties leaving. Georgian Dream began backtracking on promised democratic reforms, attacking civil society and independent media, and slowly capturing all facets of the state. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, rather than stand on the side of Ukraine – which one would assume a fellow Russian-occupied country would do – Georgian Dream leaders parroted Kremlin talking points about Ukraine, became a sanctions-evasion route, and resumed flights with Russia. They also attacked Georgia’s Western allies as the “global war party,” passed pieces of legislation that restrict civil societylimit freedom of expression and association, and allow for the opaque transfer of funding through an offshore law, and raided the offices of civil society organizations.

Georgian Dream flipped the script on friends and foes, turning away from its previous Western allies not only toward Russia but other autocratic regimes. Georgia and China announced a strategic partnership, and Georgian Dream selected a Chinese company blacklisted by international finance institutions to build a deep-sea port on the Black Sea over American and European bidders. Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze attended the funeral of Iranian President Raisi together with Hamas and Hezbollah while they shouted, “death to Israel.”  Iran has also invested significant resources in Georgia’s Azeri regions for religious organizations and business startups, and Iranian proxies have reportedly helped campaign for the Georgian Dream. Autocratic Azerbaijan is also a Georgian Dream ally, and Azerbaijani political figures and media hosts campaigned for the party in the October 2024 elections, spreading anti-Western narratives, and pressuring people to vote “correctly.”

Following the October elections, declared neither free nor fair by international observers, Georgian Dream convened parliament illegally, as the President refused to call parliament into session as required by law. Isolated and cloistered in its one-party parliament, Georgian Dream then appointed former footballer and notorious pro-Russian propagandist, Mikheil Kavelashvili, as the new president.

In stark contrast, Zourabichvili, though denied continued security support by the Georgian Dream regime and threatened with arrest by the Prime Minister, has announced she will stay with her people and continue to serve as the last legitimate institution in the country.

While the U.S. and several European countries have implemented welcomed sanctions against Ivanishvili and several regime leaders, if the door on Georgia’s democracy closes, the message to the autocrats is that the West is weak and feckless. They can have Georgia. And the domino effect of Georgia, albeit a small country, could spread to others in Russia’s near abroad, affecting Black Sea security, Armenia, and other fragile democracies.

Both Henry Kissinger and John McCain were astutely attuned to realignments of interests and influence and the danger of allowing friends of freedom to fall to the dark side and disrupt global order. The new Trump administration and Trump’s allies in Congress, however, have promised isolationism and to severely cut support for democracy work – as well as stop aid for the bravest fighter on the frontlines, Ukraine. This will have perilous consequences. Standing up for freedom fighters, like President Zourabichvili, should be our priority. Increasing, not decreasing, democracy funding. Giving the countries on the frontlines – Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova – everything they need as they are fighting to protect our democratic world order from the rising axis of autocracy. We must do this not just because it represents our values as a nation but because it represents our interests. Something Kissinger understood.

DISCLAIMER: McCain Institute is a nonpartisan organization that is part of Arizona State University. The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not represent an opinion of the McCain Institute.

Author
Laura Thornton
Publish Date
January 29, 2025
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