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Georgia - North Atlantic Treaty Organization

At a 2008 summit in Bucharest, NATO agreed that Georgia will eventually become a member, but no firm date has been set, although the membership perspective for the country has been reconfirmed at every summit ever since.

President-elect Joe Biden’s secretary of state nominee said 19 January 2021 he backed inviting Georgia into the NATO military alliance, if the former Soviet republic meets the requirements. Russia adamantly opposes Georgia ever joining NATO and maintains troops in two Moscow-backed breakaway regions that comprise about 20 percent of Georgian territory, in what Tbilisi considers an occupation. Blinken rejected the view of Senator Rand Paul (Republican-Kentucky) that expanding NATO could lead to war with Russia, saying Moscow risked invading its southern neighbor in 2008 precisely because it was not part of the Western military alliance.

Accession to NATO is an important foreign policy objective of Georgia. Georgia views NATO as the basis of the Euro-Atlantic security architecture as well as the major mechanism for ensuring security and stability in the Euro-Atlantic space. Georgia’s membership in NATO will create solid guarantees for the nation’s security and stability and will play an important role in strengthening stability in the entire region. Reforms related to NATO membership help to strengthen the country’s democratic institutions and foster its defense capabilities. There is wide political and public consensus in Georgia regarding membership in the Alliance, which was confirmed by the results of a plebiscite held in 2008.

Since 2004, Georgia has achieved significant progress in cooperation with NATO. At the 2008 Bucharest Summit, NATO member countries agreed that Georgia will become a member of NATO; that commitment was reaffirmed in the Strasbourg/Kiel and Lisbon Summit decisions, as well as in the new Strategic Concept of NATO.

Membership in NATO remains a priority for Georgia. In support of this objective, Georgia's military continues to undergo a process of reform. In September 2006, NATO granted Georgia “Intensified Dialogue” on requirements for membership in the organization. In September 2008, NATO and Georgia established the NATO-Georgia Commission (NGC) to enhance NATO’s relations with Georgia, coordinate NATO post-conflict assistance efforts, and underpin Georgia’s efforts in political, economic, and defense-related reforms. In December 2008, NATO foreign ministers agreed that Georgia should develop an annual national program under the auspices of the NGC. At the June 2010 NATO Defense Ministerial and at the November 2010 North Atlantic Council meeting in Lisbon, NATO countries reaffirmed the Alliance’s continued support for Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and its aspirations for NATO membership as agreed at the April 2008 NATO Summit in Bucharest.

The military aggression by the Russian Federation could not alter Georgia’s course toward democratic development and NATO integration. The creation of the NATO-Georgia Commission after the Russia-Georgia war of 2008 and the beginning of implementation of the Annual National Plan, as well as the establishment of a NATO Liaison Office in Georgia, gave new impetus to NATO-Georgia relations. Georgia believes that the participation of the Parliament of Georgia in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly is particularly important.

Georgia is not only a consumer of security, but also shares responsibility for collective security and actively participates in international missions. Participation in the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan is important. Georgia is one of the major contributors to military operations in Afghanistan and is ready to ensure their successful conclusion, along with other NATO forces.

Foreign Ministers reaffirmed the key principles of NATO’s policy towards Georgia when the NATO-Georgia Commission met in Berlin in April 2011. And in 2012, at Chicago NATO Summit, Georgia was officially granted the status of NATO Aspirant Country.

In 2012, by deploying the second infantry battalion, Georgia became one of the largest ISAF contributors according to the size of its military contingent (per capita) and the largest among NATO non-member countries. The Country continues close cooperation with the Alliance in the framework of NATO-Georgia Commission (NGC) through different partnership programs, such as: Annual National Program (ANP), Partnership for Peace (PfP), Planning and Review Process (PARP) and NATO-Georgia Military Cooperation Working Plan (WP).

Membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would not give Georgia any advantages for further development and would only strain relations with Russia, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said 06 August 2013. “This would give nothing to Georgia as a sovereign and dynamically developing state, but would create a long-term source of tensions between our countries,” Medvedev said in an interview with Georgia’s Rustavi-2 television channel. Speaking in regard to the fifth anniversary of the brief war between Russia and Georgia over the breakaway Georgian republic of South Ossetia, Medvedev said it the military intervention was the right decision for him to make as president at that time in order to stabilize the region. “I believe that everything that was undertaken by us, including by me as president, our Armed Forces and finally at a diplomatic level, enabled the situation to allayed. They were not the easy decisions to make, but I believe everything was done right in that sense,” he said.

Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili said September 03, 2014 that his country will ask for NATO membership at the alliance's upcoming summit in Britain. Margvelashvili said in a speech at the Chatham House think tank in London that "We will shoot for an invitation for NATO membership" but added that Tbilisi understood "[such] decisions are made in a much more complicated way." NATO said earlier in 2014 year it would not expand its membership at the summit in September. But it said it would offer Georgia a "substantive package" of cooperation that would help it move closer to the alliance.

During a visit to Georgia, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that the South Caucasus country will eventually joint the Western military alliance, despite the Kremlin's fierce opposition. Stoltenberg was in Tbilisi on 25 March 2019 to hold meetings with Georgian officials and attend joint NATO-Georgia military exercises. Speaking alongside Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze, he said that the 29 NATO member states had "clearly stated that Georgia will become a member of NATO." "We will continue working together to prepare for Georgia's NATO membership," Stoltenberg said, adding that no country has the right to influence NATO's open-door policy. "We are not accepting that Russia or any other power can decide what members can do," he said.