By Cyprien Guillot de Suduiraut
Part 2: Western Blindness: From the Bucharest Appeasement to the Abandonment of Tbilisi
Part 1: The West’s Fateful Hesitation (Published May 12)
Part 2: Western Blindness: From the Bucharest Appeasement to the Abandonment of Tbilisi
Part 3: The Roots of the Georgian Conflicts and the Five-Day War
Part 4: The Unlearned Lessons of the Georgian Case
This choice was not made solely out of fear of ‘poking the bear’. It also stands as proof of Europeans’ sheer gullibility. That naivety led them to believe that haggling with Putin was possible. Then-German Minister of Foreign Affairs (now President) Frank-Walter Steinmeier explained upon his arrival in Bucharest that there was “no desperate need of more sour relations with Russia” given that they were already ‘strained’ by the West’s recognition of Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence in February 2008. [34] The tacit belief that rejecting Ukraine’s and Georgia’s bids for MAPs would somehow ‘compensate’ for Western positions on international issues such as the Kosovo-Serbia question was profoundly delusional. One should never attempt to bargain with Russia – let alone Putin’s. The latter tends to make major decisions almost exclusively through a weakness-strength lens. It was in this way that he ordered to launch his ‘Special Military Operation’ on Ukraine in early 2022. [35] In reality, the surest way to anger the ‘Russian bear’ is not to poke it, but rather to let it sense that you are limping.
Moreover, the Bucharest decision came more than a year after the famous speech delivered by the master of the Kremlin at the 2007 Munich Security Conference – a speech retrospectively interpreted by many pundits as a “declaration of war on the West” that sceptical Western leaders misunderstood, if not ignored, for years. [36] By 2008, Putin had already chosen to defy the West. He was testing the waters – something he never ceased to do since – to gauge how far he could go in re-establishing Russia as a superpower. Henceforth, any concession, hesitation, or climbdown by Western leaders would be immediately regarded as weakness, thus a licence to resort to force on the international stage. One could contend that Bucharest’s listless half-measure, which squarely placed Ukraine and Georgia in the Kremlin’s sights, marked the first iteration of this dynamic, culminating with Russia’s assault on Georgian sovereignty in the months following the NATO summit.
This pattern has repeated itself over the years, forming an unmistakable trend. The onset of the Russo-Ukrainian war in 2014 was partly enabled by the Obama administration’s lack of action in retribution of the al-Assad regime’s crimes against humanity of August 2013, when opposition-controlled districts of the outskirts of Damascus were bombed with chemical weapons. [37] Washington’s retreat was all the more significant given that President Obama had publicly emphasized exactly one year earlier that any such action by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would constitute a ‘red line’ for the United States. When it nonetheless occurred, the White House remained largely silent and instead began seeking diplomatic alternatives to address Syria’s chemical weapons program. Putin may well have interpreted this feeble reaction as a green light for the subsequent Russian annexation of Crimea and the sponsorship of separatism in the Donbas. [38] This is a theory that some world leaders like former French President François Hollande (a staunch and foremost supporter of the idea of Western strikes on Syria in 2013) had endorsed as soon as the mid-2010s. [39]
Similarly, various commentators have linked Putin’s decision to launch Ukraine’s full-scale invasion to the disastrous final phase of US withdrawal from Afghanistan (May-August 2021). One of the major bases for their claim are comments made by senior Russian officials themselves. For example, then-Secretary of the Security Council of Russia (and former Director of FSB) Nikolai Patrushev declared shortly after the fall of Kabul that an Afghanistan-like fate – i.e. an American desertion – was awaiting Ukraine. [40]
Such statement led politicians like US House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Republicans to assert that “ [US] adversaries, like Russia, China, and Iran, saw weakness during the chaotic and deadly evacuation [from Afghanistan], emboldening them. Less than one year later, Russia launched a full invasion of Ukraine. […] When Kabul fell, many drew comparisons to Saigon as, once again, U.S. helicopters were ferrying Americans off a U.S. embassy, abandoning longtime allies”. [41]
The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War formulates an identical idea: “the US withdrawal from Afghanistan likely reinforced Putin’s anticipation of a weak Western response [against a then-hypothetical Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine]”. [42] When adding the pre-invasion Russian military buildup around Ukraine’s borders into the equation, it concludes that “Washington’s purely diplomatic approach to deterring a Russian threat against Ukraine and withdrawal from Afghanistan likely strengthened Putin’s convictions that the West would not resist his invasion by force”.42, [43]
In short, when Washington disengages from its partners, America’s enemies usually rub their hands with glee. Meaning that even the slightest perceptible sign of fragility cannot be tolerated when dealing with Vladimir Putin or his cronies.
Returning to 2008, that is why Kosovo had nothing to do with the Ukraine-Georgia question whatsoever. Steinmeier’s declaration reflected a profound personal misreading of the situation – or maybe another demonstration of German leaders’ intellectual capitulation out of fear of Muscovite bullies, dressed up as some sort of triumph of ‘geopolitical common sense’. Thinking that relations with Putin’s Russia can be patched up by accommodating its leader on a single issue ‘in exchange’ for opposing him on a different one is inept, if not outright folly (a fortiori when considering his positioning vis-à-vis the West at the time of the Bucharest summit). Had it even been different in 2008, it would probably have been too late anyway, as the Kremlin had seemingly already chosen to take the path of confrontation with the West.
The post-Bucharest neglect of Georgia
Less than a century after the catastrophic failure of appeasement, Europe once again fell prey to the very same pitfalls. It abandoned Georgia in Bucharest, and did very little to integrate it afterwards, whether within the EU or NATO – the latter having nonetheless pledged full membership in due course. Tbilisi did not fade from European chancelleries’ or Brussels’ memory; but it was neglected.
According to Kadri Liik, the EU, “despite some thunderous statements, [failed] to react in a meaningful way” following the 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia and, “not knowing what to do, simply resumed its dialogue with Russia […] after a hiatus of just a few months” – a stance generally illustrated by the derogatory formula ‘business as usual’. [44], [45] When discussing this “dip in relations between Russia and the EU” rapidly followed by a swift return to the status quo, former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt analyses it as “one of the mistakes” Brussels made concerning Russia. He contends that Europe might have inadvertently “sent the signal that it was prepared to tolerate a more aggressive Russian stance in what Russia considers its ‘near abroad’, [leading] Putin in 2014 to believe that his actions against Ukraine would cause only a ‘dip’ of the sort that happened after the war with Georgia”. [46] Under Putin, the same rule holds time and again: one that displays weakness or a lack of resolve issues an invitation to be devoured.
Although Western sanctions were finally imposed in response to the 2014 Ukraine crisis, Russia’s post-Bucharest aggressiveness – from Georgia to Crimea and the Donbas, via Syria [47] – should have spurred Euro-Atlantic structures to speed up Tbilisi’s integration, as it became clearer that Moscow would remain a major structural threat to its sovereignty. Yet, between 2008 and 2022, the EU remained somewhat passive, implementing numerous initiatives in its eastern neighbourhood [48] without ever contemplating crossing the threshold of granting candidate status to Georgia. These initiatives included the 2009 launch of the Eastern Partnership (EaP), a framework aimed at deepening political association and economic integration between the EU and its eastern partners by promoting reforms, trade, and cooperation based on democracy, rule of law, and human rights. [49] Another key development in Tbilisi–Brussels relations was the signing of an Association Agreement (AA) in 2014 (which entered into force in 2016). [50] The AA – which pursued the same objectives as the EaP – inaugurated a free trade area between the EU and Georgia [51] purposing to gradually incorporate the latter into the European single market. It also laid the groundwork for further political alignment by mandating the approximation of Georgian legislation to EU law and created an institutional framework in charge of supervising its application. [52] But despite all these pushes, candidate status remained elusive.
Since 2008, NATO–Georgia relations knew a similar turn of events. Numerous initiatives were launched (NATO–Georgia Commission, 2008; NATO Liaison Office, 2010; Substantial NATO–Georgia Package [SNGP], 2014) to advance Tbilisi’s partnership with the Alliance. [53] At some point, certain policy experts even argued that the Caucasian country was “better prepared” to join the Organization than certain states already admitted, with “relations far [exceeding] the MAP framework” and Tbilisi having comprehensively fulfilled “NATO membership criteria”. [54] Nevertheless, this still proved somehow insufficient, and the try was never converted. For years, the Allies consistently failed to provide Georgia with either a MAP or membership itself. Even at the 2022 Madrid NATO Summit held after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine fundamentally reshaped Europe’s security environment, they merely “endorsed a set of tailored support measures for Georgia, as one of NATO’s partners most directly affected by external threats and interference in the current security environment”53 – stopping short of any clear breakthrough toward accession.
Let there be no ambiguity: the Western ‘neglect’ to which Georgia fell victim was not one of policy. On the contrary, various initiatives were put in place to support Tbilisi’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations since the Bucharest episode – if anything, that is an understatement. Reservations on a hypothetical Georgian accession to NATO had rational (yet questionable) grounds, beginning with the simple fact that Russian troops currently occupy a fifth of Georgia’s internationally recognized territory. [55] As to the EU, Tbilisi’s integration could not have occurred in the 2010s for the mere reason that it never formally applied for membership, in all likelihood because Georgian governments were then aware that – unlike in the case of NATO – the country was not yet ready. In fact, it was widely understood in the early 2020s that Georgia would only apply around 2024. [56] Against the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Tbilisi eventually took the plunge “in an expedited manner” in March 2022, alongside Moldova. [57] However, on 23 June of the same year, leaders of the European Council denied it candidate status (in line with the European Commission’s recommendations) while accepting Kyiv’s and Chișinău’s bids. They acknowledged Georgia’s “European perspective” but required further reforms before proceeding with its membership application, including ‘de-oligarchisation’. [58]
In the end, Brussels granted Tbilisi the long-awaited green light almost two years later, in December 2023. [59] The damage, however, had long since been done. Again, the notion of Western ‘neglect’ of Georgia is difficult to grasp at first glance. It does not stem from inaction – quite the opposite – but rather from an accumulation of Brussels-backed initiatives often lacking long-term effectiveness. The European Union Monitoring Mission (EUMM), deployed in October 2008 to oversee the EU-brokered ceasefire following the August war, is particularly illustrative in this regard. Although the mission demonstrated undeniable usefulness on some matters (by implementing de-escalation tools which repeatedly halted emerging tensions, facilitating exchanges of prisoners, supporting locals like farmers or children living near the demarcation lines, etc.) [60], it turned out to be a failure on key others. First, despite being “mandated to cover the whole territory of Georgia”, it was constantly denied access to South Ossetia and Abkhazia.60 This enabled Russia to consolidate its position in the occupied Georgian territories, signing integration agreements with the separatist authorities in 2014–2015 and establishing new military bases, along with an indefinitely extended troop deployment – all under the EU’s apathetic watch.60 Worse still, it has been contended that, far from being a neutral stabilising tool, the EUMM may have entrenched the conflict it was yet mandated to resolve. Indeed, by functioning as an international monitoring framework to which Moscow explicitly consented, it may have lent institutional legitimacy to an illegal occupation, while its mediation role would have displaced rather than facilitated direct dialogue between the parties.60 Last but not least, the Mission’s normalisation goals remained largely unmet: Georgian-language instruction was systematically replaced by Russian from the earliest school grades in the separatist territories, ‘borderisation’ activities (e.g. Russian-endorsed installation of fences over areas of the demarcation lines) severed family ties, dispossessed residents of their land, curtailed freedom of movement, and so on.60 None of this is accidental: it reflects a deliberate Kremlin strategy to make “boundary lines slowly become borders” and breakaway entities “more and more disconnected from the territory of Georgia”.60 In that regard, the EUMM was considered not “capable of stopping such deprivation in any way”.60
That is what the Western neglect of Georgia looks like. The EU entrenching itself along the country’s lines of contact, monitoring the situation for years, yet remaining unable to prevent Georgians from gradually losing their land, at times even their families. Brussels praising the country’s European aspirations, only to set them aside while incoherently granting candidate status to the poorest state in Europe and to another whose capital had been nearly encircled by the Russian army just four months earlier – even though Tbilisi, Kyiv, and Chișinău had consistently pursued their relations with the EU as a trio. NATO never mustering the will to grant Georgia the long-awaited green light for membership – or even, at a minimum, a MAP – despite the country’s readiness to join the Alliance.
This is ‘Georgia’s oblivion’: the product of a timorous approach to Russia-related international affairs by Western (predominantly European) foreign policymakers. This oblivion is not always immediately visible. It is often implicit, understated, and rarely deliberate; rather, it emerges from a convergence of excessive caution, pusillanimous hesitation, and circumstance. At times, however, it reveals itself in plain sight, to the considerable detriment of the Georgian people.
Edited by Félix Dubé.
References
[34] See https://web.archive.org/web/20250711170120/https://summitbucharest.gov.ro/en/doc_160.html
[35] Nataliya Bugayova, Kateryna Stepanenko & Frederick W. Kagan, “Weakness is Lethal: Why Putin Invaded Ukraine and How the War Must End” Institute for the Study of War, 1, October 1, 2023. https://understandingwar.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Weakness20is20Lethal20Why20Putin20Invaded20Ukraine20and20How20the20War20Must20End20PDF.pdf
[36] Andrew A. Michta, “China, Russia and the West’s Crisis of Disbelief” The Wall Street Journal, August 7, 2022. https://www.wsj.com/opinion/china-russia-and-the-wests-crisis-america-democracy-fight-military-threat-disarmament-cold-war-putin-xi-response-11659892566
[37] For more information on the Ghouta attack: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghouta_chemical_attack
[38] Jean-Pierre Filiu, “The 10th anniversary of the countdown to war in Ukraine” Le Monde, August 20, 2023. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/08/20/the-10th-anniversary-of-the-countdown-to-war-in-ukraine_6099781_4.html
[39] See for instance Michaël Bloch, “Obama-Hollande : le poids de la ‘trahison’ du 31 août” [Obama-Hollande: the Weight of the August 31 ‘Betrayal’] Le Journal du Dimanche, November 18, 2016. https://www.lejdd.fr/International/Entre-Obama-et-Hollande-une-relation-marquee-par-la-trahison-du-31-aout-825571 (in French)
[40] “Senior Russian security official questions US commitment to Ukraine after Afghan exit” Euractiv, August 20, 2021. https://www.euractiv.com/news/senior-russian-security-official-questions-us-commitment-to-ukraine-after-afghan-exit/
[41] See “Willful Blindness: An Assessment of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Chaos that Followed” US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, 30 & 231-233, September 9, 2024. https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-foreignaffairs.house.gov/files/migrated/uploads/2024/09/WILLFULL-BLINDNESS-An-Assessment-of-the-Biden-Harris_Administrations-Withdrawal-from-Afghanistan-and-the-Chaos-that-Followed.pdf
[42] Bugayova, Stepanenko & Kagan, op. cit., 5.
[43] In the case of Afghanistan, one should nevertheless note that the US withdrawal may not have been a decisive factor of Putin’s February 2022 move. In fact, his decision to invade Ukraine is likely to have been made in “early March 2021”, months before the Afghan debacle (see “Investigative Report Says Putin Made Decision To Invade Ukraine In March 2021” RFE/RL, April 25, 2023). https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-putin-lanned-ukraine-invasion-march-2021-vyorstka/32379171.html). Russia expert and former CIA analyst Peter Schroeder emphasized this point in an article where he also went against the flow by interpreting Ukraine’s aggression as a Russian response to a US-induced security dilemma, rather than a failure of Western deterrence stemming from an apparent lack of strength or resolve. See Peter Schroeder, “America’s Withdrawal From Afghanistan Did Not Spur Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine” Foreign Affairs, November 6, 2023. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/americas-withdrawal-afghanistan-did-not-spur-russias-invasion-ukraine
[44] Kadri Liik, “In search of ‘business not as usual’ with Russia” European Council on Foreign Relations, May 29, 2019. https://ecfr.eu/article/commentary_business_not_as_usual_russia_eu_us_relations
[45] This European ‘business as usual’ policy was undoubtedly facilitated by the context of Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency (2008-2012) and the prospects of liberalisation, diplomatic rapprochement and economic opportunity various Western actors read into it. At the same time, those same actors overlooked the early signs of Russia’s renewed bellicosity. See Carl Bildt, “Russia, the European Union, and the Eastern Partnership” European Council on Foreign Relations, 5-6, May 19, 2015. https://ecfr.eu/archive/page/-/Riga_papers_Carl_Bildt.pdf
[46] Bildt, op. cit., 5-6.
[47] The Russian intervention in the Syrian civil war (2015-2024) led to multiple instances of war crimes, most notably during the battle of Aleppo, when the Kremlin ordered the bombing of hospitals and medical facilities in opposition-controlled areas in coordination with Assad regime forces (see for instance “Russia/Syria: War Crimes in Month of Bombing Aleppo” Human Rights Watch, December 1, 2016. https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/12/01/russia/syria-war-crimes-month-bombing-aleppo). Overall, according to numerous sources, Russian bombardments caused the deaths of thousands of civilians (see for instance the April 2018 telling toll compiled by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, only two and a half years into Moscow’s interference in the conflict: https://www.syriahr.com/en/90825/).
[48] Within the scope of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), EU’s foreign policy instrument dedicated to the development of ties between the Union and its Eastern and Southern neighbours. More information about the ENP can be found on the website of the EU’s European External Action Service: https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/european-neighbourhood-policy
[49] More information about the EaP can be found on the website of the EU’s European External Action Service: https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/eastern-partnership_en
[50] See https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/documents/treaties-agreements/agreement/?id=2014007
[51] Officially known as Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA). DCFTAs were also included in the EU-Moldova and EU-Ukraine AAs, entered into force in July 2016 and January 2017, respectively.
[52] Irena Ilic & Salome Markozia, “Future Associates: An Overview of the EU-Georgia Association Agreement” Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. 4, Issue 2, 11-22, December 2015. https://doi.org/10.31578/jss.v4i2.88 (PDF version available at https://oaji.net/articles/2016/2903-1459926079.pdf)
[53] See https://www.nato.int/en/what-we-do/partnerships-and-cooperation/relations-with-georgia
[54] Amanda Paul & Iana Maisuradze, “NATO and Georgia 13 years on: So close, yet so far” European Policy Centre, May 31, 2021. https://www.epc.eu/publication/NATO-and-Georgia-13-years-on-So-close-yet-so-far-3f974c/
[55] Even though Russia’s occupation of Georgia’s breakaway regions raises obvious security concerns regarding the application of the mutual defence clause provided for by North Atlantic Treaty’s article 5 (https://www.nato.int/en/about-us/official-texts-and-resources/official-texts/1949/04/04/the-north-atlantic-treaty) should Tbilisi join the Alliance, possible escape routes do exist. Figures such as former NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen have, for example, advocated Georgia’s accession to the Organization “without Article 5 coverage of illegally occupied territories”: see https://x.com/AndersFoghR/status/1171361985906298880
[56] Vlad Makszimov, “Georgian president visits Brussels in push for 2024 EU membership application” Euractiv, January 22, 2021. https://www.euractiv.com/news/georgian-president-visits-brussels-in-push-for-2024-eu-membership-application/
[57] “Georgia, Moldova Formally Apply For EU Membership Amid Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine” RFE/RL, March 3, 2022. https://www.rferl.org/a/georgia-moldova-eu-applications/31734092.html
[58] Jorge Liboreiro, “Why was Georgia not granted EU candidate status?” Euronews, June 24, 2022. https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/06/24/why-was-georgia-not-granted-eu-candidate-status
[59] See https://civil.ge/archives/574502
[60] Tereza Smejkalová, “European Union Monitoring Mission in Georgia (2008-2019): contribution to stability or part of a problem?” Vojenské rozhledy (Czech Ministry of Defence’s journal), Issue 4, 3-17, 2019. https://doi.org/10.3849/2336-2995.28.2019.04.003-017
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