Author: Nata Koridze, UGSPN Senior Research Fellow
Main themes and priorities of the report
The NATO Secretary General’s Annual Report 2025 reveals that the Alliance is primarily focused on managing immediate security threats rather than pursuing enlargement. The document reflects NATO as adapting to a more dangerous international environment, which is being shaped by Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine and an intensification of geopolitical rivalry. The primary threat as per the document are Russia, China and terrorism. The report also focuses on the need to strengthen collective defense capabilities. The overall message is one of consolidation rather than expansion.
Several core priorities emerge from the report. Firstly, NATO is prioritizing military readiness and deterrence by increasing defense investment and adapting its forces. Secondly, continued support for Ukraine remains central to the Alliance’s political and strategic agenda. Thirdly, the report emphasizes resilience against hybrid threats and the enhancement of defense industrial capacity. Finally, while partnerships remain important, they are increasingly being viewed through a functional security lens rather than through the enlargement framework that characterized NATO policy in previous decades.
This reflects a broader shift in NATO’s strategic thinking: partnerships are now managed according to their immediate security relevance and political alignment, rather than being integrated in the long term.
Georgia in the report
Within this framework, Georgia appears as a partner whose cooperation with NATO continues but whose political trajectory has complicated the relationship in recent years. This has manifested itself in several ways, including the worsening of the language in official NATO documents and the almost complete absence of Georgia from recent summit declarations. There has also been an almost complete disappearance of references to NATO integration in the rhetoric of Georgian officials, and cooperation has been scaled down. This includes a reduction in the frequency of NATO-Georgia Commission meetings. While 20–25 meetings were previously held on average throughout the year, in recent years fewer than half that number have taken place annually.
Although Georgia had previously taken it upon itself to meet NATO’s target of spending 2% of its GDP on defense, it fell below this threshold during the period from 2020 to 2024 and spends significantly lower (1.9% of GDP in 2024, and 1.68% in 2023) than its neighbors Armenia (5.5% in 2024) and Azerbaijan (5% of GDP) despite the increasingly volatile security situation in the region.
The Secretary General’s annual report says that NATO has adjusted the scope and focus of its engagement following recent political developments in Georgia, which followed the contested parliamentary elections in 2024, while maintaining practical cooperation in defense and security.
The report, specifically reads that Allies “reviewed NATO’s engagement with Georgia in light of the 2024 parliamentary elections and their aftermath. As a result, elements of NATO-Georgia cooperation were reprioritized, including some aspects of the Substantial NATO-Georgia Package.”
Crucially, the SNGP serves not only to enhance Georgia’s defensibility and interoperability with NATO, but also to prepare Georgia for NATO membership in line with the commitment made by Alliance members at the 2008 Bucharest Summit.
Two other integration tools, the NATO-Georgia Commission and the Annual National Programme, also appear to have lost momentum. A review of NATO official communications, annual reports, and Georgian reporting suggests that no high-level NGC meetings were publicly reported in 2024 or 2025 and the number of the official meetings has plummeted. Furthermore, the Alliance has not issued an assessment of Georgia’s Annual National Programme in 2025.
As for the SNGP, it was previously regarded as a highly successful and efficient tool, with Georgia hosting several international conferences to share relevant experience with Allies and partner countries. The last conference was held in 2018. Against the backdrop of stagnating NATO-Georgia relations, the reprioritization of the SNGP will most likely reflect the downgrading or scaling back of the Package initiatives.
Information about the SNGP processes is not publicly available; however the case of the Strategic Communication Initiative, illustrates how the domestic politics and political discourse of the Georgian authorities affects the decline in practical cooperation with the Alliance. The then- SNGP Core Team Leader, Col. Norbert Hess, confirmed back in 2024 that the UK, as the lead nation one of the SNGP Strategic Communication initiative, had suspended its support. In practice, this meant that no more joint activities would be carried out under the initiative. He also stated that “recent activities and rhetoric from the Georgian government have raised concerns amongst NATO Allies.” The stalling of joint activities under the initiative was reportedly due to anti-Western rhetoric from the Georgian authorities, despite the fact that the Strategic Communication Initiative was intended to fight disinformation and counter such rhetoric.
Despite the recalibration of relations, the 2025 Annual Report states that the Alliance continued to cooperate with Georgia in the defense sphere, including the 2025 NATO-Georgia exercise. This is apparently an indication that, despite the deterioration of political relations, the Alliance cares about maintaining some form of cooperation with one of its formerly most interoperable and reliable partners: “At the same time, defense cooperation with the Georgian Defense Forces progressed, as evidenced by the successful NATO-Georgia exercise in May.”
The NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte confirmed this approach at the press-conference regarding the report. Noting that there are “serious worries at the moment” regarding Georgia, he stated: “When it comes to the relationship between NATO and Georgia, we think there is merit in keeping that relationship going.” However, he added that NATO must also recognize recent developments.
He then called upon Georgia “to return to the path of a more pro-EU, European-forward-looking approach, including making sure that all the developments, the whole trajectory Georgia was on in terms of democracy, rule of law, is continued”.
Comparison with the Previous Reports
What is notable is not only what the report says, but also what it does not emphasize. Compared to earlier NATO language, Georgia’s membership perspective is virtually absent from the document. The focus appears to be on maintaining existing cooperation mechanisms, mainly military interoperability.
The tone suggests continuity in practical cooperation but hesitation in political endorsement. This distinction is important because NATO historically treated Georgia as one of the most advanced aspirants politically, even when membership remained distant in practice.
In addition, in 2025 report Georgia is referred to in the subparagraph on South Caucasus, which, in the context of NATO membership is not the most suitable place to be mentioned taking into account Georgia’s aspirant status. For comparison, in previous reports, Georgia as a supposedly ambitious aspirant and key ally, used to be regularly mentioned in a separate subchapter and in the context of enlargement.
Both the quantitative and qualitative analyses of language relating to Georgia in the last five reports by the NATO Secretary General indicate a downgrade in the level of engagement with the country. Although not the main indicator, the frequency with which Georgia is mentioned has declined over the years: whereas it used to be mentioned an average of 20–30 times in a document, in this report it is mentioned only 11 times.
More important, however, is the context in which Georgia is mentioned and the language used.
The 2021 report mentioned Georgia in the NATO’s Open Door sub-chapter, stating: “Allies also remained committed to supporting eventual NATO membership of Georgia and Ukraine, in line with decisions taken at the 2008 Bucharest Summit and subsequent summits….” The report also contained a separate subchapter on Georgia. The report also speaks of Georgia in the Black Sea regional context.
The 2022 report reflected the multiple dimensions of NATO’s engagement with Georgia, mentioning it in the context of support for Ukraine and other vulnerable partners in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It also mentioned Georgia in relation to cooperation in energy security, boosting training and capacity building, and other contexts. Importantly, the reportcontained a separatesubchapter on relations between NATO and Georgia, and referred to Georgia’s NATO membership prospect in the NATO’s Open-Door sub-chapter, underlining the Bucharest commitment.
The2023 report contained a separate subchapter on Georgia, specifically stating that “Georgia is one of NATO’s closest partners, and an aspiring member of the Alliance.”
The 2024 report mentioned Georgia in the context of engagement in the South Caucasus in the South Caucasus sub-chapter, as well as in the context of practical cooperation, but not in the enlargement context. There was no mention of the Bucharest commitment or Georgia’s aspirant status.
As with the previous year, the2025 report makes no mention of the Bucharest Summit commitment or Georgia’s aspirant status. The report specifically makes a point of the review of NATO’s engagement with Georgia, and links this not only to the disputed 2024 elections, but also to the “aftermath” of these elections, which supposedly implies the anti-democratic trends in the country, that have concerned the Alliance in recent years.
Interpreting the “reprioritization” of NATO–Georgia relations
The report can be interpreted as reflecting a recalibration of relations. NATO does not appear to be disengaging from Georgia; rather, it is adjusting expectations and signaling political concern without abandoning cooperation.
This approach appears to pursue three objectives simultaneously.
First, the Alliance appears to be signaling that political values remain central to the depth of integration possible with partners. By adjusting cooperation rather than expanding it, NATO is implicitly communicating dissatisfaction while avoiding confrontation.
Second, NATO is preserving security cooperation to maintain stability in the South Caucasus and protect its long-term strategic interests in the Black Sea region. Georgia’s geographic position and its substantial contribution to NATO operations in the past continue to give it practical importance beyond the question of membership.
Third, NATO may be attempting to avoid pushing Georgia further away strategically in the longer run. A complete political distancing could risk weakening Western influence in the region, something NATO likely wants to avoid given the broader geopolitical competition with Russia.
Conclusion
Overall, the report suggests that Georgia is currently experiencing strategic stagnation in its NATO trajectory, at best. While the partnership remains, momentum towards membership appears to have stalled.
However, this does not necessarily mean that NATO has fundamentally changed its long-term position on Georgia. Rather, it suggests that due to the geopolitical developments – predominantly the war in Ukraine, war in Iran, enlargement is currently a lower-order priority compared to managing ongoing conflicts and strengthening internal cohesion. At the same time, domestic political developments in Georgia appear to have reduced the appetite within NATO to actively promote its integration.
In practical terms, Georgia risks remaining in a grey zone: too important for NATO to disengage from, yet not sufficiently politically aligned to move significantly closer to membership at present. This state of affairs, in the current trajectory continues, will most likely eventually result in the stagnation and downgrading of practical cooperation as well, including military cooperation, as the trust among Allies and Partners is a precious commodity when it comes to not only political dialogue, but practical cooperation as well.
As joint exercises and other engagements for future years are planned today, it is probable that the current political climate in the country will influence future practical cooperation.
The Secretary General’s report suggests that NATO is managing its relationship with Georgia through a pragmatic balancing act. At this point the Alliance continues security cooperation while signaling political caution, reflecting both NATO’s broader strategic priorities and concerns about Georgia’s domestic and foreign policy direction.
For Georgia, the key takeaway is that the partnership remains viable but no longer appears to be advancing. Progress toward deeper integration will likely depend not only on continued defense cooperation but also on rebuilding political trust with NATO members, which in its turn, depends on the improvement of democratic credentials and trajectory of the country. Until then, the relationship is likely to remain at best limited, at worst declining characterized more by risk management than by integration momentum.