When arriving in the Georgian capital, one is immediately stuck by echoes of the Cold War. Communist era nostalgia is redolent on Tblisi’s beautiful streets. The ghost of Stalin seems to percolate the air. Poised in the maelstrom of historic territorial rivalry, Georgia suffers the collective pains of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, as if it did not have crises enough of its own. War in Abkhazia and in South Ossetia are overwhelming for any post-Soviet state, but in the Georgian case they are compounded by ongoing conflicts among neighboring territories. Unavoidably, Georgian democracy is imperiled by ‘forever wars’ internally and along its international boundaries.
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