In the mid-2010s, Maj. Gen. Vakhtang Kapanadze was one of the highest ranking officers in Georgia’s armed forces when an annual military exercise with the United States called Noble Partner began. Earlier this July, Noble Partner came to a sudden end, perhaps for good.

As part of a “comprehensive review” of relations with Georgia, US officials announced the indefinite postponement of Noble Partner. Such a shake-up of an established security arrangement, Kapanadze and other military analysts say, is a sign that the Georgian Dream government’s geopolitical turn away from the West is creating a security gap, weakening the country’s ability to address its main strategic threat: Russian aggression. 

For years, Noble Partner was the tangible product of a security relationship meant to deter conflict with Russia and improve Georgia’s defense capabilities. Just days after the Noble Partner announcement, the European Union halted more than $30 million in funding for Georgia’s armed forces. On the same day, Denmarksaid that it would halt $10 million in funding for a nascent military aid program established the previous year. 

Suddenly, Georgia’s defense establishment faces the possibility of being on its own. Kapanadze, for one, worries that recent developments may leave the military underequipped and undertrained.

“Left alone against Russia, it is absolutely catastrophic for us,” Kapanadze told Eurasianet in an interview, commenting on the loss of Western military partners.

Pawel Herczynski, Brussels’ ambassador to Tbilisi, said the EU’s aid cutoff constitutes a reshuffling in Europe’s spending priorities, adding that the money will be diverted to reinforcing key pillars of democratic society. “Our direct support to the government of Georgia will be limited, and we will seek to redirect support from the government of Georgia to civil society and [independent] media,” he said.

Analysts say the suspended assistance programs can be quickly restored. But doing so would require Georgian Dream to pivot from its current course – which has seen the country embrace illiberal policy positions that are antithetical to traditional Western values. Georgian Dream’s potential defeat in parliamentary elections and the rise of a new government in Tbilisi could also alter the US and EU stance on military cooperation.

The chief catalyst for the West-Georgia schism was Georgian Dream’s adoption of a controversial law – similar to one used in Russia to crush dissent – regulating so-called “foreign agents.” Additional discriminatory legislation, as well as unfounded accusations that US officials and agencies have conspired to mount a coup, have also been factors in the rapid deterioration of relations.

Pentagon Spokesperson Pat Ryder confirmed that the canceling of the Noble Partner exercise was a direct result of Georgian Dream’s unsubstantiated claims last fall that the US was trying to foment a coup. “Unfortunately, the decision to postpone and cancel these exercises was made due to very concerning rhetoric suggesting statements that the United States intentionally seeks to escalate tensions in the region, which is completely false,” he said in an interview with Voice of America.

Georgia’s lean military is primarily built around countering potential threats from Russia, which continues to occupy swathes of Georgian territory following the 2008 Georgian-Russian War, including the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Today’s military budget “does not adequately reflect the threats and challenges that the Georgian defense sector faces,” said Vasil Sikharulidze, former Georgian ambassador to the US and minister of defense, attributing the shortcoming to Georgian Dream. Defense spending totals $500 million and troop numbers are capped at 37,000, making Georgia’s armed forces the smallest of the three South Caucasus states.

Funding for the armed forces has stood at record-highs in recent years, but Nodar Kharshiladze, a founder of the Georgian Strategic Analysis Centre, said the funds are not being spent efficiently or with an eye toward future needs. “To say that it [the military] is totally neglected, that won’t be accurate,” he told Eurasianet. “However, they [officials] don’t invest in developing [new] capabilities.”

For most of the time since the 2008 war with Russia, Georgia could rely on a high level of attention and assistance from NATO. In a sign of just how close relations had gotten, 45 lawmakers in 2020 requested a permanent US military presence to “deter imminent threats and help Georgia move closer to NATO membership.” Rumors about the possibility of the establishment of a US base continued to swirl as recently as late 2023.

The recent NATO summit in Washington highlighted just how far and fast strategic relations have fallen. The final communique did not reaffirm 2008’s Bucharest Declaration on Georgia’s path to membership, a remarkable snub.

“These alarming developments make Georgia extremely vulnerable to the current volatile security environment,” Temur Kekelidze, Georgia’s former envoy to NATO, wrote in a recent op-ed published by the Civil.ge outlet.

“NATO-Georgia relations have deteriorated due to the government’s pro-Russian stance, backsliding on reforms, and anti-Western rhetoric,” Kekelidze continued. “We have witnessed the reversal of European and Euro-Atlantic integration and its replacement by the so-called ‘multi-vector’ diplomacy, which effectively isolates Georgia from the West and pushes it toward Russia.”

Georgian government officials have sought to downplay the significance of strained security ties with the United States and EU. In Washington during the NATO summit, for example, Georgian Foreign Minister Ilia Darchiashvili claimed Tbilisi remains a “reliable partner” of NATO, sidestepping Western complaints about Georgian Dream’s adoption of restrictive legislation. 

Experts interviewed by Eurasianet said that a lower NATO profile in Georgia raises the possibility of renewed confrontation with Russia.

Kapanadze, the former chief of the general staff, said there are realistic scenarios under existing security conditions in which Russia could further encroach on Georgian territory, utilizing its troops based in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. He cited the Enguri Dam as a potential flashpoint. Jointly operated by both Georgia and de facto Abkhazia authorities on the eponymous river, the Enguri Dam is a key piece of energy generating infrastructure in northwest Georgia.

“Abkhazia can say that ‘we need to strengthen our border’” and, supported by Russia, make a claim to the dam, Kapanadze said. “Who will help us in that case?”