No, this isn’t about the state sandwiched between South Carolina, Florida and Alabama, known for its peaches. It’s about the small nation in Eurasia about half the size of the U.S. state of Georgia. It happens to be sandwiched between Russia, Iran, Turkey and Azerbaijan and it should be on our radar.

The nation of Georgia received its independence from the Soviet Union in December of 1991 and has recently made an application to become a part of the European Union. Polls show that about 80% of the people of Georgia want to lean into the European Union, not Russia. But this little nation is, in a manner of speaking, a canary in the coal mine, and my guess is that most of America knows nothing about it.

Strategically, so much is happening today from the standpoint of our national security. It’s critical that we stay ahead of these existential threats instead of our representatives arguing embarrassingly like children about peoples’ eyelashes in Congress.

The sum of these issues include the explosive situation in the Middle East, Russia’s incursions into Europe, the growing authoritarian alliance and strategic cooperation between China and Russia, the economic competition and trade wars with China, China’s island expansions in the East and South China Seas, China’s advancements in space exploration, to name the most prominent.

But allow me to transition back to this small nation of Georgia, a nation at a geographic and political inflection point, given the creeping spread of authoritarianism in Eurasia.

This past week, tens of thousands of Georgians demonstrated in the streets in the capital of Tbilisi in protest over a bill before the Georgian parliament called the “Foreign Agents Bill.” In spite of massive popular opposition to the bill and warnings from the European Union that the bill could kill their application to the EU, the bill became law this week.

By name, the new law seems innocuous enough. It requires any organization receiving more than 20% of its funding from abroad to register as “agents of foreign influence.” Georgia’s president vows to veto the bill but the parliament has enough votes, a simple majority needed, to override her veto. Here’s the snare. The bill is modeled after similar laws throughout Russia that the Kremlin uses to smother opposition, the press and civil society.

The majority party in the parliament is called the Georgian Dream party. The Kremlin has supported it and enabled it with money and propaganda tools. CNN reported that the Georgian Dream Party, “has long been suspected of harboring pro-Russian sympathies, especially given its founder, the billionaire former prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Russia,” in the fabulous world of privileged oligarchs. Georgia’s president, Salome Zourabichvili, called this legislation a “Russian Law,” and told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, “Georgians are very well aware of these old Russian Soviet propaganda tricks.”

The canary in the coal mine. Ukraine may already be that canary, but right now Ukraine’s story has no end; the bird is still alive. What happens next in Georgia may confirm Putin’s hostile intentions to seize not only Georgia but other small and vulnerable nations in northern Europe, to smother civil society in these former territories of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. In other words more “special military operations.”

For those who are not following Russia’s transgressions in this part of the world, besides Ukraine, Russia has seized parts of Moldova in 1992, 20% of Georgia and South Ossetia in 2008, followed by Crimea in 2014, and of course now eastern segments of Ukraine in 2022.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, all currently members of the European Union and NATO, are watching this teetering canary, wondering if it will succumb to asphyxiation by Russia transgressions against sovereignty and international law or if freedom loving nations will stand up to these authoritarian transgressions.

At the end of the day, it may come down to NATO demonstrating that Article 5 of its defense pact that an attack against one is an attack against all, is the inexorable and unyielding defensive porcupine, not to be messed with. Adding Sweden and Finland to the NATO Pact is a good start but more lethal weapons to Ukraine would be the kind of oxygen that would give reassuring life to the canary whether in Ukraine or Georgia.

What’s at stake here is not just democracies in Europe. If Russia succeeds in bullying its way into vulnerable sovereign nations at will, China and Iran will take note. This axis of authoritarianism could grow fast like a global cancer, and quickly metastasize, spreading to Taiwan (China), to Israel (Iran), Guyana (Venezuela), Serbia, Slovakia, Romania, Azerbaijan (Russia) among other nations in western Asia and Africa (Niger, Congo, Sudan and Yemen).

As small a nation as Georgia is, it remains a key indicator of Mr. Putin’s ultimate intentions. If this Georgian canary falls off its perch of freedom, there’s the very real potential consequence for the spillage of U.S. blood and treasure. This is true, especially if such misfortune follows the fall of either Georgia or Ukraine. We need to remind our Congressional leaders that this is where their attention needs to be, with less energy diverted to schoolyard political squabbles.

Bill Sims is a Hillsboro resident, retired president of the Denver Council on Foreign Relations, an author and runs a small farm in Berrysville with his wife. He is a former educator, executive and foundation president.