Borrowing From the Future: Why Nations Must Think Beyond Their Own Generation

Every generation inherits a country. More importantly, every generation leaves one behind.

Politics, however, rarely encourages such long-term thinking. Public debate is usually consumed by immediate controversies, electoral cycles, tactical victories, ideological battles, and the endless urgency of the present moment. Too often, the preservation of power takes precedence over the preservation of national opportunities and the strategic horizons available to future generations. Yet the most consequential political decisions are often those whose consequences will be borne not by those who make them, but by those who come after them.

This simple truth has particular relevance for Georgia today.

For more than three decades, successive generations of Georgians invested in building something that cannot be measured in military power, economic statistics, or budgetary figures alone. They accumulated political capital: trust, credibility, strategic partnerships, institutional connections, and a reputation painstakingly built through thousands of negotiations, reforms, diplomatic engagements, sacrifices, and acts of perseverance.

Nothing about this process was linear. Mistakes were made. Opportunities were missed. Governments changed. Reforms advanced and stalled. Progress was followed by disappointment, and disappointment by renewed effort. Yet despite these fluctuations, a broad strategic consensus endured – Georgia knew what kind of country it aspired to become.

Too often this is reduced to the phrase “Western orientation,” as though it were merely a geopolitical preference or a choice between competing centres of power. It was never simply that.

At its core, the Western orientation reflected a choice about the character of the Georgian state itself. It was about institutions rather than personalities. It was about the rule of law rather than arbitrary rule. It was about accountability rather than discretion. It was about strengthening sovereignty through functioning democratic institutions rather than relying on permanent political mobilisation and polarisation as substitutes for institutional strength.

The attraction was never perfection.

No serious observer of Western politics could claim that the West is free from contradictions, hypocrisy, mistakes, or failures. Winston Churchill’s famous observation about democracy remains relevant precisely because it acknowledged imperfection. Democracy, he remarked, is the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried.

The same may be said of the broader political model that Georgia sought to emulate. Imperfect, often frustrating, occasionally disappointing, yet still without a demonstrably superior alternative. For Georgia, the attraction was not perfection. It was normalcy.

I recall a discussion many years ago during a conference in Riga. A senior Russian participant expressed frustration at the tendency of former Soviet states to seek closer relations with Europe and the Euro-Atlantic community.

“Why does everybody want to go West?” he asked. “Why is everybody running away from Russia?”

My answer was straightforward. Nobody was running away from Russia. Most of us wanted normal relations with Russia. We wanted trade, cooperation, cultural exchanges, and stable relations based on mutual respect. We were prepared to take Russia’s legitimate interests into account.

But there was one condition. Russia also had to regard us as equals. The problem was never interests. Every state has interests. The problem emerged when interests became confused with influence. There is a profound difference between respecting another state’s interests and accepting another state’s right to determine your choices. One reflects partnership. The other reflects hierarchy.

For many newly independent states, the Western orientation represented not a rejection of Russia but a rejection of hierarchy. It reflected a desire to live in a political environment where sovereignty meant the right to choose rather than the obligation to comply.

Yet it would be equally mistaken to present the last three decades as a story of flawless Western judgment. They were not. One of the most consequential strategic assumptions held by many Western governments after the collapse of the Soviet Union was that Russia was gradually evolving toward a democratic political order and would eventually become a fully integrated and responsible stakeholder in the broader European security architecture.

The pursuit of partnership with Russia was both understandable and necessary. The problem was not the search for partnership itself. The problem was the expectation that economic integration, institutional engagement, and political cooperation would inevitably produce strategic convergence and a shared understanding of sovereignty, security, and the rules governing relations among states.

History unfolded differently.

Countries such as Georgia often found themselves in a peculiar position. While seeking integration with Western institutions, they simultaneously warned that Russia’s political evolution might not follow the trajectory many Western policymakers anticipated. Those warnings were not always fully appreciated. At times, stability appeared more attractive than principle, accommodation more attractive than caution, and optimism more attractive than strategic realism. The consequences of those assumptions continue to shape Europe today.

Yet acknowledging Western misjudgments does not invalidate the broader choice Georgia made after independence. The attraction of the Western orientation never rested on the assumption that Western governments were always wise or that Western policies were always correct. It rested on something more durable: the belief that institutions matter, that law should prevail over arbitrariness, that governments should be accountable, and that sovereign states have the right to determine their own future.

The debate about sovereignty illustrates this distinction particularly well.

In recent years, Georgian officials have frequently argued that European criticism and European recommendations represent attempts to limit Georgia’s sovereignty. Yet this interpretation reverses the logic of the relationship. The overwhelming majority of recommendations made by European institutions have not concerned Georgia’s foreign policy choices, territorial concessions, or limitations on its statehood. They have concerned judicial independence, electoral credibility, institutional accountability, the rule of law, media pluralism, and democratic governance. In other words, they have concerned the very foundations upon which modern sovereignty rests.

The paradox is difficult to ignore. Measures intended to strengthen institutions are often presented as threats to sovereignty, while the concentration of power is presented as its defence. Yet strong institutions do not weaken sovereign states. They strengthen them. An independent judiciary does not diminish sovereignty. Credible elections do not diminish sovereignty. The rule of law does not diminish sovereignty. On the contrary, these are among the principal instruments through which sovereignty is exercised and protected in the modern world.

This may explain part of the current disagreement. The implementation of such reforms often redistributes power, introduces constraints, increases accountability, and limits the discretion of those who govern. Governments may therefore regard them as politically inconvenient. But what may be inconvenient for a government is not necessarily harmful to the state.

Governments and states are not the same thing. Political parties and nations are not the same thing. The long-term interests of a country cannot always be reduced to the immediate interests of those who happen to govern it.

This brings us back to the question of inheritance. Over more than thirty years, Georgia accumulated a considerable reserve of political capital. Small states rarely possess abundant military or economic power. Their influence rests elsewhere.

Their currency is trust. Their comparative advantage is credibility. Their strength lies in being regarded as reliable, predictable, and strategically consistent.

This capital was not accumulated overnight. Nor was it accumulated by one government, one political party, or one generation. It was built by successive generations of Georgians.

And that is precisely why its erosion should concern us.

It has always been easier to destroy than to build. Building requires patience, persistence, discipline, compromise, and the willingness to invest in outcomes one may never personally enjoy. It requires years, often decades, of effort. Destruction is far less demanding.

States are no exception. What takes decades to construct can be weakened in a surprisingly short period of time. The tragedy is that in politics and history we rarely destroy only our own opportunities. We often diminish the opportunities available to those who come after us. We consume assets we did not create and leave future generations with fewer possibilities than those we ourselves inherited.

This is what troubles me most today.

The concern is not simply that we may be damaging our own Georgia. The deeper concern is that we may be diminishing the Georgia that will belong to our children and grandchildren.

The strategic partnerships, institutional links, international credibility, and trust accumulated over more than three decades were not built for the benefit of one government, one party, or even one generation. They formed part of the inheritance of future Georgians.

A future generation may well decide to strengthen and deepen Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic course. It may seek to rebuild what has been weakened and restore what has been neglected. History suggests that such recovery is entirely possible. But history also teaches another lesson. Restoring policies is easier than restoring trust. Rebuilding institutions is easier than rebuilding credibility. Recovering lost political capital is rarely the work of a few years. More often, it is the work of a generation.

As employed in contemporary Georgian political discourse, the “Deep State” has become a remarkably versatile concept. It explains criticism from Democrats and Republicans, from Congress and the Administration, from Washington and Brussels alike. Such explanatory flexibility has one obvious advantage: it leaves very little room for the uncomfortable possibility that some concerns may be genuine. One sometimes comes away with the impression that the “Deep State” has become less a specific phenomenon than a convenient label encompassing virtually anyone who happens to disagree with the government’s policies.

Yet nations rarely benefit from explanations that eliminate the need for reflection. The more important question is not who is criticising Georgia. The more important question is why. Ultimately, this discussion is not about America, Europe, Russia, China or any particular government. It is about responsibility.

My generation inherited a difficult country and an uncertain future. We made mistakes, sometimes serious ones. Yet despite our failures and shortcomings, we attempted to leave behind a larger strategic space than the one we ourselves inherited. We tried to leave future generations more opportunities than we ourselves possessed. That, ultimately, is the standard by which every generation should be judged.

The question today is whether we are doing the same.

Because nations, like families, are ultimately judged not only by what they achieve for themselves, but by what they preserve for their children.

Every generation inherits a country. It also leaves one behind.