Georgia and Georgia: Aspiring and Settled States

While one Georgia was secure as a member-state in the U.S., another Georgia was finding itself being frozen out of not only accession talks with the E.U., but also being invited as a “NATO partner” to attend the NATO meeting in June, 2026. It is ironic that whereas the first Georgia had delegated some of its sovereignty to the U.S. in 1789, the second Georgia was unhappy remaining fully sovereign outside of the E.U. rather than as one of the semi-sovereign E.U. states. Giving up some governmental sovereignty can be a “step up,” and, with that comes certain requirements in terms of good governance.

Although “Georgia’s ruling party representatives claimed that the [NATO] summit in Ankara did not include the type of meetings Georgia used to attend in the past . . ., Georgian Dream MP Irakli Kirtskhalia told the press in Tbilisi that ‘we have no problem attending the summit, (sic) ask the organizers why we are not represented.’”[1] The party representatives were artfully deflecting, whereas Kirkskhalia was pointing journalists to the real reason for Georgia’s absence. Georgia’s government had not been invited to the NATO meeting, even though other partners of NATO, including Qatar, UAE, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Ukraine, and Australia were. At the root of the problem was a lack of trust.

That Georgian President Mikheil Kavelashvili “travelled to Tehran to attend the funeral of the late Ayatolla Ali Khamenei” instead did not exactly win Georgia much trust in the West.[2] The signal that such an action sent outdid any positive words of potential partnership with NATO. A political analyst in Georgia, Paata Zakareishvili, “claimed that the absence of NATO’s invitation to its regional security debates represents what he called the loss of trust by Georgia’s partners.”[3] In fact, he went so far as to admit, “Georgia is being ignored.”[4] He added that Georgia had been aspiring to be part of the alliance, and that “Georgia and Ukraine used to move toward NATO membership together.”[5] Considering Russian President Putin’s strident opposition to Ukraine being in the international alliance, Georgia should have had an easier way in. Instead, he said, “Georgia is no longer being considered anywhere.”[6] Anywhere turns out to be important, for, according to Georgia’s former ambassador to NATO Levan Dolidze, “what is far more damaging is Georgia’s absence from discussions within the European Union.”[7] Such discussions pertained to Georgia possibly gaining statehood in the Union; and, yes, statehood does indeed imply the existence of a federal political system.

As is clear from Georgia in the U.S., being a member-state in a political union wherein both the union and states are semi-sovereign is much more significant than being invited as a partner to a meeting of an international alliance. Even though the U.S. Senate and the Council of the E.U. (and the European Council) are founded on principles of international law, neither union can be said to be an international organization. Indeed, both the U.S. House of Representatives and the European Parliament are founded on national rather than international political principles (i.e., citizens rather than polities are represented, and by population). Both unions can be said to be hybrids forged from the hard political compromises made in the U.S. Constitutional Convention, when the arrangement of fully sovereign countries under the Articles of Confederation were dismissed as too suboptimal for political agency.

Although near the end of 2025, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze insisted that Georgia’s accession-path to statehood “remains steady and irreversible” such that becoming a state by 2030 was still “both realistic and attainable,” the E.U. froze Georgia mid-stream in June, 2026 after the Georgian government had passed a “foreign influence” law that the Commission “described as Russian-inspired and authoritarian against the backdrop of massive anti-government protests in Tbilisi.”[8] The trip to the funeral in Tehran in July didn’t exactly help speed Georgia along either. It did not matter, as Kobakhidze claimed, that Georgia was ahead of all other prospective, aspiring states in economic progress indicators; the problem was one of trust, both regarding democratic values at home and the choice of allies abroad. Even though technicians—pedestrians really—were doubtlessly focusing narrowly on whether the accession criteria were being met, it is important not to lose sight of the big picture.

Was the Georgia “Western” enough not merely to join in an international military alliance, but also to become a semi-sovereign state in a political, federal union? Or would the Georgian government be a “Trojan horse” whose strings would be pulled by Russia’s autocratic and militaristically aggressive Putin? Although from the strategic standpoint of the West, bringing in as many former Soviet Republics as possible may seem optimal because such a move would deprive Russia of being able to “bring them home,” filtering by applying the “sufficiently Western” test is better because then neither the Western military alliance nor the European Union (and the United States, indirectly) would be weakened from within. 

The Georgia that has been a member of the U.S. since the beginning of that political union (and, even earlier, when the U.S. had just been a military alliance and then a confederation of sovereign countries), had tried to “Georexit” in 1861 but was subsequently brought back “into the fold.” Would the Georgia that was shut out of the E.U. in 2026 follow in the footsteps of Viktor Orbán’s Hungary at the expense of federal foreign policy and the defense of the E.U. itself from foreign threats, and ultimately even accomplish “Georexit”? Already Britain had seceded from that political union, and the vote in favor of secession was mainly a reaction against the fact that E.U. states are semi-sovereign rather than fully sovereign, which pertains instead to a confederation such as that of the American Articles. No significant difference with E.U. foreign policy was involved in Britain’s decision to secede. Georgia, on the other hand, would need to prove its loyalty not only to rule-of-law democracy, but also to the West (rather than to Russia or Iran), besides being willing to cede some of its sovereignty in order to be considered and ready for statehood in the E.U.

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1. Peter Barabas, “Georgia Left Off NATO Summit Partner List as Critics Decry Isolation,” Euronews.com, 10 July, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.

Is the E.U. in the U.S.'s Strategic Interest?

Is a more perfect Union in Europe in America’s national interest? On the American holiday in 2026 that principally honors George Washington, whose eight-year commitment as the military commander-in-chief to the cause of freedom for the 13 new sovereign republics that had been members of the British Empire (and would forge a comparable political Union[1]) was decisive, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited the E.U. state of Hungary to deliver “a message of support from the Trump administration to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán,” who was behind in the polls in his re-election campaign.[2] At their press conference, Orbán and Rubio “signed an agreement on energy cooperation and hailed what they described as a ‘golden age’ of bilateral relations.”[3] E.U. officials were nowhere in sight; it was as if Hungary were still a sovereign state rather than a semi-sovereign E.U. state. An implicit question untreated by the media in the E.U. or U.S. is whether bilateral relations between the U.S. and individual E.U. states, as if the E.U. were nonexistent, was still in the U.S. national interest, especially in the context of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

To be sure, U.S. President Trump’s political support of Orbán could be attributed in no small measure to the fact that Orbán had been “the only European leader who openly supported Trump’s re-election campaign.”[4] Rubio even stated at the joint press conference that the “person-to-person connection” that Orbán had “established with the president has made all the difference in the world in building this relationship.”[5] So was Trump willing to bypass the very existence of the E.U. on the strength of his political relationship with Orbán? If so, and if a strong E.U. was actually in the national interest of the U.S., was Trump putting too much emphasis on loyalty to Trump himself?

It can be argued that Viktor Orbán had been pursuing policies that were at odds with the E.U., and more specifically with the ability of the federal institutions to exercise their exclusive and shared competencies (i.e., enumerated powers). In fact, the Commission had withheld funds from the state of Hungary because Orbán’s state administration had violated E.U. law and breached rule-of-law and justice requirements. Furthermore, Orbán had been wielding his state’s veto in the European Council to keep Ukraine from being annexed to the European Union. In fact, the Hungarian leader’s oil-related coziness to Russia’s President Putin had undercut the E.U.’s support of Ukraine militarily and thus enabled Putin’s military aggression. Is the implication for Trump that Putin’s aggression should not be countered by the E.U., or perhaps he preferred that individual E.U. states aid Ukraine militarily? If so, the fruits of collective action, even just by mutual cooperation but more strongly by a federal army, would by implication be contrary to the American national interest, according to the Trump administration.

Relying on the E.U. states as if their mutual coordination would be enough to enable Ukraine to push back the occupying Russian troops and military hardware—a dubious assumption—opens up the possibility that those states could again turn on each other. To forestall or put out military conflicts being waged by the armies (i.e., militias) of the U.S. member-states, U.S. basic laws was made so that Union could have a federal army and the federal president could temporarily coopt a state army for use by the Union. Is it now in the American national interest that the E.U. be given comparable competencies by its states—especially given the astronomical American expense and lives given in the previous century to put out two World Wars, both of which were sourced in European conflicts?

Furthermore, given the policy of the Trump administration to pull back American military support to protect Europe, relying on E.U. states to remilitarize without any militarization of the E.U. itself along with that of its states seems to be counterproductive. Would not the American interest be in line with another Union being like the U.S. rather than the former Articles of Confederation, in which the American states were in a federal Union but still fully sovereign from 1781-1789? Before the Articles, the new republics (i.e., ex-colonies) in the U.S. were sovereign countries in a military alliance. In contrast to the latter two arrangements, the E.U. sports dual-sovereignty.

I contend that it is actually contrary to the strategic interest of the U.S. that the E.U. and its share of governmental competencies (i.e., enumerated powers) be diminished or ignored in favor of the U.S. going it alone with particular E.U. states as if they were still fully sovereign countries. Ignoring an aspect of political reality is not a good basis for going forward in international relations. Furthermore, a bottom-heavy federal system in which the federal governmental institutions are perpetually thwarted by Euroskeptic state governments (e.g., Slovakia and Hungary) even in the carrying out of existing federal competencies is inherently unstable, and thus such a Union could eventually collapse if unimpeded conflicts reach a sufficient severity between particular states, or even if states frustrated by paralysis at the federal level secede from the Union as Britain did, though the rationale for that state seceding arguably had more to do with resistance to the E.U. having any share of governmental sovereignty than with frustration over ineffective bureaucrats in Brussels.

Whereas David Cameron, a former prime minister in Britain preferred that the E.U. be based on something like the American Articles of Confederation (with each state remaining fully sovereign), the American national interest voiced by Rubio in supporting Viktor Orbán viewed the E.U. as a case of the dreaded multilateralism, and thus the E.U. as akin to an international organization like the UN or even NATO. In having a supreme court (i.e., the ECJ), a directly-elected parliament (i.e., the European Parliament), an executive branch headed by a president who could be considered to be the federal president (i.e., the Commission and Usula Von der Leyen, respectively), an upper chamber representing the states (i.e., the European Council and the Council of Ministers), the E.U. cannot be construed as only multilateral or even international in nature. So, Trump’s antipathy toward that Union is not only in error, but also reflects negatively on the basic structure of the American Union because both unions sport modern federalism (i.e., dual sovereignty rather than confederal fully-sovereign states).

That is, Rubio’s position in favor of Orbán not only weakened the E.U., risked American military involvement once again, and strengthened Putin’s military position in Ukraine (because he would not have to fear intervention by a federal E.U. army), but also reflected badly on the U.S.’s federal system. Take the U.S. back to 1826, approximately 33 years after the Americans replaced the confederal Articles with a system of modern, dual-sovereignty-based federalism (such as the E.U. has![6]), and the E.U. at 33 looks a lot like that Union back then. By implication, Trump’s position in 2026 in favor of Euroskeptic Hungary’s leader was in line with supporting anti-federalist states prior to 1861 in the U.S. and completely ignoring the federal institutions and their respective enumerated powers (i.e., competencies) in Washington. Because Trump and Rubio held federal rather than state offices at the time, the position thus reduces to a logical absurdity beyond merely being against multilateralism. 

1. Skip Worden, British Colonies Forge an American Empire: A Basis for Trans-Atlantic Comparisons (Seattle: Amazon Books, 2017).
2. Sandor Zsiros, “’We Want You to Continue’: Rubio Delivers Trump’s Campaign Message to Orbán in Budapest,” Euronews.com, 16 February, 2026.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

6. Skip Worden, Essays on Two Federal Empires: Comparing the E.U. and U.S. (Seattle: Amazon Books, 2017).

Oh, Siagon

War can leave families in a dysfunctional condition. In the case of the Vietnam War, the broadcast video of the last helicopter taking off from the roof of the American embassy in Siagon in 1974 carries with it the veneer of fleeing Vietnamese on their way to a life of freedom in the United States. Not evident from the video is the impact on a Vietnamese family that is documented in the film, Oh, Siagon (2007).

The full essay is at "Oh, Siagon."

A Drone Wall for the E.U.: Russian Aggression Assuages Euroskeptic States

Speaking after his meeting with U.S. President Trump in Alaska during the summer of 2025, Russia’s President Putin said that if no agreement is reached with Ukraine, the force of arms would decide the matter. In other words, might makes right, or at least military incursion is a legitimate way to decide political disputes between countries. I would have hoped that such a primitive mentality would be antiquated in the twentieth century, but, alas, human nature evolves only at a glacial pace undetected within the lifespan of a human being. In September, 2025, the United Nations was under attack from within the General Assembly because of the continuance of the veto held by five countries in the Security Council; the U.S. had just vetoed a resolution for an immediate cession of Israeli destruction in Gaza. As a former deputy secretary of the UN had admitted to me during the fall of 2024, the veto itself renders the UN unreformable; a new international organization would have to be established sans vetoes for efficacy to be possible. Even so, absent a real enforcement mechanism, such as a military force, a resolution even of a vetoless organization would merely be parchment. The impotence of the UN is one reason why NATO, a defensive military transatlantic alliance, has been valuable in the face of military threats by Russia. Yet in September 2025, after Russian drones had flown into four E.U. states, E.U. President Von der Leyen felt the need to take the lead by again stressing her proposal for a drone wall along the E.U.’s eastern border; she was not deferring to any international alliance, much less to the United Nations. I submit that Von der Leyen’s initiative is yet another means by which the E.U. can be distinguished from international “blocs,” alliances, and organizations. Unlike the latter three, the E.U. has exclusive competencies and is thus semi-sovereign (and the same goes for the state governments).

After “two or three large drones were spotted at Copenhagen Airport,” which is in the E.U., on September 23, 2025, the E.U.’s Commission “called for a drone wall, a novel initiative first unveiled by President Ursula von der Leyen” in her State of the Union speech.[1] “For those who still doubted the need to have a drone wall in the European Union, well, here we get another example of how important it is,” a spokesman at the Commission said.[2] Why had not the Commission pursued this proposal in time to block the incursions in August and September?

Euroskeptic, or anti-federalist, Europeans, which included at least two governors at the time, loathed the idea of federalizing defense (and foreign policy). Also, just as in the early decades of the U.S., some state governments resisted the federalization of “collective” debt. That the E.U.’s executive branch was “rolling out a €150 billion loan programme to boost defence spending, which could be mobilized to promote domestic production of drones,” represented to some governors a giant leap on the way to a central federal state that would eventually encroach on the state governments.[3] This fear, by the way, is precisely what led several U.S. states to try to exit the U.S. in 1861.

Whereas in the U.S., the state government’s direct power at the federal level had been weakened when state governments no longer appointed delegates to the U.S. Senate, E.U. state governments could wield veto power over a significant number of proposed federal laws and regulations. Whereas the U.S. state governments could no longer adequately protect their turf against federal encroachment, the E.U.’s federal governmental institutions could still be paralyzed by blocs of states or even just one state. So, it is incredible that the Commission was able to act on the incursions of drones once this had been in a north-western state (i.e., Denmark) to create a drone wall and issue significant “collective,” or federal debt. Unlike international organizations, the E.U. has some governmental sovereignty that had been delegated by the states, and this means that it is no surprise that the E.U. rather than NATO or the UN would take action in the face of Putin’s use of force of arms to decide the question of Ukraine. The problem is that the Commission has too often been paralyzed by the state governors, which is particularly damaging because the E.U. is not an international organization, and those that existed as of 2025 could not be relied upon.

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “’We Cannot Wait’: EU Calls for Drone Wall to Deter Russia after New Incident in Denmark,” September 23, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

Turkey on Cyprus: Sidelining the E.U.

Imagine if Japan had invaded and claimed (and successfully held) an island of Hawaii as a protectorate and a separate country due to the number of Japanese living there, and thus not as a part of Hawaii even though the U.S. recognizes all of Hawaii as a member state.  Let’s say furthermore that the UN has proposed the unification of Hawaii as a republic composed of two federated states. Hawaii would be akin to Belgium in the E.U.—a federated state of two sub-states in a federal union. This arrangement would fit with Althusius’ early seventeenth-century theory of federalism based on the Holy Roman Empire: each level of political organization is a federation. While this exists in the E.U., none of the U.S. states is itself a federation of states. So, the UN’s proposal that Cyprus be united politically and be composed of two states even as the E.U. already recognizes the entire island as an E.U. state is not outlandish to a European eye. The problem with the proposal lies instead in Turkey, and this in itself can be interpreted as an argument against Turkey’s accession to E.U. statehood.

“Speaking at an event in the north [part of the island in 2024] to mark the 50^th anniversary of the Turkish invasion that [had] split the island along ethnic lines, [Turkey’s President] Erdogan ruled out resuming talks based on the Annan Plan which proposed the establishment of a United Republic of Cyprus.”[1] In rejecting the proposal, he was ignoring the fact that the E.U. recognized the entire island of Cyprus as a state in that union. He was thus unwittingly undermining the E.U. even as Turkey was still technically seeking statehood. I submit that this undermines Turkey’s chances of accession, and furthermore, that Turkey should not become a state. For at the very least, an aspiring state should respect the E.U., even and especially on matters that touch on that potential state. The case of the E.U. state of Hungary being found in wanton violation of E.U. law by the E.U.’s supreme court, the European Court of Justice, demonstrates just how harmful a disrespectful state government can be within a federal union.

Erdogan’s establishment of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is only recognized by Turkey’s government and was rejected in a 2004 referendum by more than 75% of the Greek Cypriots in the south, would, if accepted by the E.U., limit the E.U.’s common market to the south and thus create the need for customs checkpoints inside the island. While not as complicated as the case of Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K. and yet also part of the Irish island—Ireland being an E.U. state—politically splitting the island of Cyprus permanently would make things more difficult for the E.U. with respect to its state of Cyprus in the south. Again, it would be a case of Turkey making things more difficult for the E.U., and yet presumably also wanting to become a state to enjoy the economic advantages of the union’s unfettered interstate commerce. This combo must surely strike Europeans as unsavory and thus as a de facto argument against Turkey joining the union. In other words, the way Erdogan was playing his hand politically with respect to Cyprus showed the Europeans that they had been right to hold off on accession talks with Turkey because its government would not make a very good state government in the union. Already Hungary was enough of a problem. That 90% of Turkey is not in Europe and the culture is not European may be what is behind not only the tension in Cyprus, but also why Turkey would be a problematic state in the European Union.

Lastly, Erdogan’s insistence on a “two state” solution for Cyprus, as if the difference between the north and south were as great as those between the Palestinians and Israelis in Israel, discounts or even perhaps dismisses the mollifying effect that Cyprus being a state in a union would have on the tensions on the island, and thus shows a lack of confidence in the E.U. in its mission to forestall war in Europe. In other words, the president of Turkey didn’t seem to have much faith in the federal institutions, including the E.U.’s court of justice, to protect minorities within the union and assuage tensions domestically, by which I mean within the union. Just as the rationale of the U.S. as a federal union of dual sovereignty was in part to use federal power to step in to stop Shay’s Rebellion in Massachusetts and the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania, so too the E.U. has the means at its federal level mediate any excitements within the state of Cyprus. Yet Erdogan did not seem to trust Brussels enough to recognize the entire island of Cyprus as an E.U. state.

Brussels already had Viktor Orbán of Hungary distrusting the federal institutions in 2024 and actively working at odds with E.U. foreign policy on Russia even as he held the presidency of the Council of the E.U. during the last six months of 2024. Taking note of the 50^th anniversary of Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus then, Brussels could have done worse than formally end Turkey’s proposed accession. A house divided cannot long stand, or at least cannot prosper and thrive as it could otherwise. With Russia belligerently knocking down Ukraine, Europeans could surely have benefitted at the time from a basic or fundamental unity that at the very least includes respect for and confidence in the European Union, given its rationale bearing on protecting Europe from war within.

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1. “Erdogan Dismisses UN Plan for Federated Cyprus, Reaffirms Commitment to Two-State Peace Deal,” Euronews, July 21, 2024.

Democracy Waning in Former French Colonies in Africa

The subversion of democracy in former French colonies in Africa stymies the African Union from developing from a mere confederation, wherein all of the governmental sovereignty resides with the states, to modern federalism, whose chief characteristic is dual sovereignty. There is good reason for the requirement in the U.S. that the states be republics rather than dictatorships, for the latter would be more likely to ignore the federal jurisdiction within their respective states.

As of 2024, the president of Senegal “tried to cancel an election. In Niger, a military coup d’état toppled an elected president, who eight months later [was] still imprisoned in the presidential palace. In Chad, the leading opposition politician was killed in a shootout with security forces. . . . In Tunisia, once the only democratic success story of the Arab Spring rebellions, the president [was] steering the state toward increasing autocracy.”[1] With such political upheaval going on at the state level, any discussions at the AU level on whether the states should delegate any governmental sovereignty would only be stymied and thus useless. This in turn kept the AU impotent in being able to act as a check against tyranny at the state level. This vicious cycle cannot, I contend, be totally blamed on the former colonial status and the ongoing interventions of France, though both have been playing a secondary role.

To the extent that French governmental pressure led the former colonies to mimic the French system of government wherein the office of president is strong, France is culpable in inhibiting democracy in Africa. “After they won independence from France in the 1960s, nascent states modeled their constitutions on France’s, concentrating power in presidents’ hands.”[2] This statement implies that the former colonies wanted a system of government with a strong unitary leader. That the indigenous political culture in Africa emphasized the tribal chief figure likely figured prominently in the decisions to emulate the French system, rather than it being imposed from France.

To be sure, “France maintained a web of business and political ties with its former colonies” that has involved “propping up corrupt governments”—including autocratic ones.[3] The salience of news reports from Africa on France24 and TV5Monde alone attest to France’s continuing interest in Africa. France could arguably make a difference in reducing political instability and enhancing democracy in the former colonies were autocratic rulers and coups discouraged rather than encouraged. Perhaps French government officials fear, and thus seek to prevent, the potential rival power of the AU that could manifest were political stability improved at the state level. Such a narrow perspective would differ significantly from the American position that a stronger union in Europe is in America’s interest, especially considering the cost to America in having fought two World Wars in part in Europe.

Even if France has been propping up cozy autocratic rule in the former colonies, the disillusionment with democracy has been stronger in the former French colonies than in other African states, according to Boniface Dulani, a director at Afrobarometer.[4] “While a majority of Africans polled [in 2024] still say they prefer democracy to other forms of government, support for it is declining in Africa, where approval of military rule is on the rise—it has doubled since 2000. That shift is happening much faster in former French colonies than in former British ones.”[5] Such sentiment may be a preferment for political stability precisely because of the extent of political instability in the former French colonies. In an indigenous soil of tribal chieftains, the allure of a “strong man” to restore and maintain political stability could easily thrive even though it would come at the cost of political freedom. Perhaps in the former British colonies, with the notable exception of Sudan, there is less reason to bear the cost of foregone political freedom. “Eight of the nine successful coups in Africa [between 2000 and 2024] have been in former French colonies.”[6] The coups themselves reinforce the allure of autocratic rule as providing for political stability, even though such stability can only be until the ground shifts again enough for the next coup. This cycle too is difficult to break. In the meantime, the AU has been stuck as a mere confederation, powerless to provide a breakthrough. 

It is not for nothing that the founders of both the U.S. and E.U. emphasized that the states be democratic republics. This lesson finds harder ground where the historical culture is not in line with democracy. So perhaps the quest for the AU might be how to go from being a confederation to embrace modern, dual-sovereignty, federalism by making it in the interest of state-level dictators even though a system of modern federalism would include viable constraints of the power of the states. Delaying the constraints so the current dictators would not face federal strictures would be key, as well as the inevitable political deal-making that is basic to any political animal.

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1. Ruth Maclean, “Democracy Teetering in African Countries Once Ruled by France,” The New York Times, March 23, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.