The New Great Game Round-Up #37

The Great Game Round-Up brings you the latest newsworthy developments regarding Central Asia and the Caucasus region. We document the struggle for influence, power, hegemony and profits between a U.S.-dominated NATO, its GCC proxies, Russia, China and other regional players.

A few months ago, NATO's Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen reassured the Kremlin that no Russian neighbor will join the U.S.-led military alliance in 2014. However, shortly thereafter NATO tried to integrate Ukraine into the military structure of the European Union using the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, which has been accurately described as a “NATO military agreement disguised as a customs and economic agreement”. So sooner or later the United States will incorporate more Russian neighbors into its military bloc and some Georgian officials do not want to wait any longer for this moment:

Usupashvili's Blunt Warning over NATO MAP

Refusal to grant Georgia a membership action plan (MAP) at NATO summit in Wales in early September will “ruin and undermine” political stability in the country, Georgia's parliament speaker, Davit Usupashvili, has warned.

Speaking at an event organized by the Estonian Center of Eastern Partnership, Usupashvili, who is one of the leaders of the Georgian Dream ruling coalition, also suggested that if Georgia is again denied to MAP, like it happened four years ago at the NATO summit in Bucharest, it will give a “momentum” to anti-Western political forces in Georgia.

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