New Routes, Old Anxieties: Why Georgia's Middle Corridor Remains Central

The South Caucasus has a habit of turning logistics into politics. A single sentence, uttered in Davos, was enough to reignite familiar fears in Tbilisi: would Georgia be pushed aside if Armenia and Azerbaijan began sending freight directly through each other's territory? For some Georgian commentators, the answer was instant and dramatic. Georgia, they warned, was about to lose its transit crown; the Middle Corridor would be hollowed out; the country would find itself bypassed, marginalised, and geopolitically stranded.

Yet beneath the noise lies a far less sensational and far more consequential reality.

President Ilham Aliyev's remarks at the World Economic Forum were neither a threat nor a forecast of Georgia's decline. They were a statement of direction: that peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan could, eventually, allow freight to move more efficiently across the South Caucasus. The keyword here is addition, not replacement. New routes, if anything, reflect growing demand rather than shrinking relevance.

Georgia's own prime minister, Irakli Kobakhidze, was quick to inject sobriety into the debate. Far from undermining Georgia's role, he argued, alternative routes would merely supplement it. The evidence he cited was not theoretical. Freight volumes along the Middle Corridor have increased sevenfold over the past five years. In response, Georgia is doubling down, investing heavily in roads, ports, airports and logistics hubs to absorb rising traffic, not fend off imaginary rivals.

This is where much of the opposition rhetoric collapses under its own weight. The claim that Georgia is about to be“bypassed” assumes a static world in which trade flows are finite and routes compete in zero-sum fashion. In reality, the South Caucasus is experiencing a structural increase in transit demand, driven by shifting global supply chains and the reorientation of Eurasian trade away from Russia. More corridors do not weaken Georgia's position; they thicken the network in which Georgia already sits at the centre.

Even as opposition voices paint a dire picture, the data tells a different story: transit traffic via Georgia's Middle Corridor has risen by nearly 173 per cent in early 2025 alone, underscoring demand that outpaces fears of decline.

In the first half of 2025, cargo transit through Georgia's transport corridor grew sharply. The Middle Corridor handled 9,849 TEUs, a 173 % increase compared to the same period in 2024 (3,608 TEUs). Georgia's Black Sea ports processed about 7 million tonnes of cargo in the first half of 2025, up nearly 6 % year‐on‐year.

Cargo along the Trans‐Caspian International Transport Route (Middle Corridor) expanded from about 840,000 tonnes in 2021 to 4.5 million tonnes in 2024, a more than fivefold increase. Growth was 62 % year‐on‐year, and countries aim to reach 10 million tonnes by 2030.

Independent forecasts, such as the World Bank and EBRD, paint an even bigger picture: trade via the Middle Corridor could expand by 150 % in value and 60 % in volume by 2040, with annual throughput potentially reaching 11 million tonnes, making it a cornerstone of Eurasian logistics rather than a fleeting transit path.

Even figures outside government circles have acknowledged this. Vato Shakarishvili of United Neutral Georgia described the opening of Armenia–Azerbaijan routes not as a loss for Georgia, but as an opportunity, one that strengthens regional connectivity and reduces political risk. His point was simple: suppliers, consumers and transit states all benefit when routes multiply and chokepoints disappear.

“The emergence of new potential transit routes in the region would represent not a threat to Georgia, but an additional opportunity. Suppliers, consumers, and transit states all benefit when routes multiply and chokepoints disappear,” Shakarishvili said. He stressed that internal political stability and neutrality serve as a guarantee that Georgia will not be drawn into confrontation with Russia.

Why, then, the alarmism?

Part of it stems from a deeper political reflex. For Georgia's pro-Western opposition, any development that does not pass exclusively through Georgian territory is framed as a geopolitical defeat, often wrapped in the language of resisting“Russia-linked” alternatives. But this framing misses the broader picture. Peace-driven connectivity in the South Caucasus does not serve Moscow's interests; it complicates them.

The reopening of the Azerbaijan–Armenia border carries implications that extend well beyond freight statistics. The closure of that border was itself a product of separatism and occupation, first in Azerbaijan's Garabakh region, now echoed in Georgia's own unresolved conflicts in Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region. The lesson is uncomfortable but clear: de-occupation enables connectivity; separatism blocks it.

From this perspective, Baku's experience matters greatly to Tbilisi. The restoration of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity made the resumption of direct transport possible. For Georgia, facing continued Russian occupation, the precedent is politically potent. It reinforces the principle that borders reopen only when occupation ends, not the other way around.

This is precisely why Moscow finds itself in an awkward position. Russia has long sought to restore transit routes through Abkhazia, even going so far as to construct a logistics terminal there at its own expense. Yet without withdrawing its recognition of separatist entities or initiating a de-occupation process, such routes remain politically and legally impossible. Georgian authorities have been unequivocal: no recognition, no corridors.

Former president Mikheil Saakashvili, writing from prison, sees Aliyev's remarks as an existential threat, claiming they undo decades of Georgian state-building. But this reading confuses symbolism with substance. Georgia's transit role was never secured by exclusivity alone; it was secured by geography, infrastructure and political coherence. None of these disappear simply because peace makes movement elsewhere possible. Perhaps neither Saakashvili nor the Georgians would love to see a working system collapse.

In fact, the launch of Armenia–Azerbaijan transit may quietly strengthen Georgia's hand. As regional routes diversify, Russia faces a strategic dilemma: remain isolated from the Middle Corridor, or rethink its posture towards Georgia's occupied territories. Either way, the logic of connectivity begins to work against the permanence of occupation.

What Davos revealed, then, was not Georgia's vulnerability, but its choice. Panic leads to self-marginalisation. Confidence, backed by infrastructure, stability and a clear red line on occupation, keeps Georgia central to the region's future. In a South Caucasus finally experimenting with peace, the real risk is not being bypassed, but refusing to see opportunity where it clearly exists.

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