An old Georgian legend explains our country’s fate better than most diplomatic cables.
When God began distributing lands to the nations, every tribe arrived on time. Only Georgians were late—not out of laziness or neglect, but because they were feasting. When they finally appeared, God asked why. They answered honestly: they had been celebrating, and their last toast was raised to Him. The story goes that God smiled and gave them the beautiful land He had kept for Himself: mountains, valleys, vineyards, and a coastline facing west. Georgia received a gift. But it came with a condition: a rough neighborhood. Even the Black Sea was never meant to be comforting. The ancient Greeks first called it Póntos Áxeinos—the Inhospitable Sea—because it was difficult to navigate and because hostile tribes lived along its shores. Only later did they rename it Póntos Eúxeinos, the Hospitable Sea, a euphemism that reflects a deep human habit: when danger is permanent, we soften its name in order to live beside it.
Georgia has lived beside danger for centuries. That is why we have never had the luxury of confusing geography with ideology.
At Davos, Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney offered a phrase that went viral because it captured the era with brutal elegance: if countries are not “at the table,” they may find themselves “on the menu.” Canada is not medium-sized on the map; it is vast. But in the hierarchy of power, even major economies can become “middle powers,” vulnerable to bargains made above their heads. For Georgia, the metaphor lands differently. We have always been on the menu. We were not born in a protected corner of the world. We were born at the crossroads -between empires, between routes, between competing histories. The only question that matters is not whether we are noticed. We always are. The question is: who is doing the noticing and for what purpose? Because there are menus where you appear as a partner, and menus where you appear as dinner or, if you are unlucky, as an appetizer.
For decades, Georgia’s strategic choice has been clear: to orient toward the West, to seek partnership with the United States, and to build a future anchored in independence rather than submission. That path has not been easy, and at times it has required sacrifices that small countries are asked to make more often than large ones. But Georgians also know an uncomfortable truth: if our country survived as an independent and sovereign state through the storms of the post-Soviet era, it did so in large part because the United States chose not to look away. American assistance, political support, and security cooperation mattered. It mattered in concrete ways and in moral ways.
Yet something has shifted.
Even ordinary Georgians sense it: a thinning of attention, a cooling of engagement, a bureaucratic silence where there used to be strategic seriousness. Something has clearly gone wrong in the relationship and while the causes may not always be obvious to citizens watching from daily life, they are visible to anyone who has spent years inside the machinery of diplomacy.
The worst outcome for a small country is not hostility. It is irrelevance.
The return of Donald Trump to the center of American politics has also changed the language of survival for small nations. Whether one likes him or not, President Trump represents a more transactional approach to foreign policy – one in which alliances are judged less by sentiment and more by immediate deliverables.
In this environment, Georgia cannot survive by saying only: we are loyal. Or even: we are right.
Georgia must also be able to say something that fits the new logic: We are useful, valuable, bankable and here is how.
When I served as Georgia’s ambassador in Washington, my central question in meetings with American officials was often not “What can you do for Georgia?”—though Georgia needed much. It was the reverse: What can Georgia do for the United States?
That question mattered because it changed the geometry of the relationship. It turned Georgia from a case file into a contributor. It reminded Washington that Georgia’s value was not only moral; it was strategic. That lesson has not changed. Only the packaging has.
Georgia’s strongest asset is not mineral wealth. It is geography—usable geography. We sit on a critical segment of the Middle Corridor, connecting Europe to Asia through the South Caucasus. We are a Black Sea shoreline state, positioned at a frontier that is becoming increasingly consequential as Russia seeks to rewrite borders and reassert imperial control. And there is one project that turns these realities into something measurable: Anaklia. A deep-water port is not just a development dream. In today’s geopolitical environment, it is a strategic platform: a lever for trade, connectivity, and resilience. It is the kind of project that strengthens Europe’s access to Asia, reduces dependence on authoritarian routes, and gives the West practical options rather than rhetorical ones.
This is not charity. It is strategy.
There will always be competing maps and corridors proposed by ambitious actors across the region – beautiful arrows drawn across Azerbaijan and Armenia, accompanied by declarations of historic breakthroughs. But corridors do not live in press releases. Corridors live in infrastructure, stability, and predictable transit. And in the South Caucasus, any serious “route” that excludes Georgia is not a route. It is a PowerPoint fantasy.
Still, there is a red line that cannot be crossed. Georgia can offer loyalty. Georgia can offer partnership. Georgia can offer reliability and predictability. But Georgia cannot offer loyalty at the cost of sovereignty. Because loyalty without sovereignty is not loyalty. It is submission. And submission does not produce safety; it produces demands.
The purpose of alliances is not to reassign small nations to new spheres of influence. It is to ensure they are not consumed by old ones. Georgia must do what small countries have always done: adapt quickly, speak clearly, make itself difficult to ignore – and choose, without illusions, the right side of the fence. That requires seriousness in Tbilisi. It requires clarity in Washington. And it requires the West to remember something that should never have been forgotten: when small democracies are treated as expendable, authoritarian empires do not become satisfied. They become encouraged.
Prime Minister Carney’s metaphor ends with the menu. Georgia’s story does not. We were given a beautiful land — late, after a feast, after a toast to God. We intend to keep it. Not as someone else’s dish, but as our own country. That is what survival looks like for a small country in a rough neighborhood: not grand speeches, not theatrical indignation, but the hard discipline of staying visible, staying useful, and staying sovereign — even when the world is hungry.
But for Georgia to be perceived as useful and valuable again, Georgia must first fix itself internally. It must restore democratic balance and institutional trust. And that, today, feels like a Sisyphean toll – one that must be paid not only by the government and the opposition, but above all by Georgia’s citizens.
Because Georgia belongs to all of us. It is not anyone’s private property.
