This was another of the world class goofs of the Bush regime. Georgia is in Russia's sphere of influence, and the Bushies did loads of harm goading the poor mopes in Georgia to annoy the bear. The bear struck back, and the USA was limited to bleating about how terrible it all was.

I will concede that mine is a minority opinion, but I hope I live to see the day when the USA gets back to something like minding our own business. If South Ossetia had no right to secede, we owe an apology to the British Empire. I don't like Putin and I don't care for Russia's "muscle flexing" anymore than the other reviewers; but who are we to play judge when we have troops in virtually every region of the world?

It seems that this story died waaay too quickly for me. After all, Putin was Time mag's 'man of the year' and dubya told us all years ago that he could see 'into his [Putin's] soul' and that meant that America had reason to believe that Putin was one to be trusted. . .seems like everyone here swung and missed on Putin and wanted that news cycle to end quickly. . .or perhaps I'm reaching. . .

I'm not any sort of Russian expert but I feel I have a decent grasp on history. Its definitely a big deal when Russia exerts any military force against a neighboring nation. The response of NATO and the United States is very important in the current globalized society. Things seem to have settled down in the region lately, or maybe the American public just hasn't heard much about it lately because of political conventions and hurricanes. The situation in Georgia is definitely worth keeping an eye on.

russia is beginning to exercise its nationalist muscles with this move. the georgian government, which is strongly pro-western (although not entirely democratic) has been at odds with russia over a few issues. russia's contention that they are aiding dissident South Ossetians is a pretext for russia to resolve longstanding conflicts with its former satellite state to the south. russia is particularly against georgia's desire to join NATO, which puts the wests sphere of influence too close to home for them. russia is sending the troops in keep georgia in line. this conflict won't completely resolve any time soon, as russia's true aim is to destabilize georgia's government with the purpose of bringing in a regime that's more amenable to russia's interests.

the us can't do much, exept possibly act as a mediator in this situation. during the 1990's, we could influence russian behavior through monetary aid packages, but now the russians no longer need US assistance, so our influence over their behavior has been reduced. a combination of higher oil prices and the weak dollar has encouraged russia to confront america and the west more. the europeans won't do much either, since they are increasingly reliant on russian oil exports.

nationalism overall seems to be on the ascent throughout the world. russia and china are exercising their national prerogatives. throughout latin america and the middle east, nations are consolidating their power bases. whether we like it or not, we are seeing the return of balance of power politics in the international sphere, and with that the potential of more high scale wars and conflicts.

interesting times ahead, most definitely.

A dangerous and frightening development that I suspect most North Americans aren't paying much attention to.

Anyone who has read a little history of the 20th Century can see a clear parallell between Russia's "coming to the aid" of some dissident Georgians, with Hitlers "assistance" of German speaking Czechs in the Sudetenland.

More awful signs coming from Vladimir Putin's [correction: Putin clone's] campaign of intimidation. Under the pretext of coming to the aid of a small number of Georgians who would rather be governed by Russia, Putin [correction: Putin II] has undertaken a plan of regime change in Georgia, resulting in thousands of casualties over this past weekend. Unfortunately the U.S. has no moral high ground from which they can back down the Russians; as the Russian ambassador wryly commented, "'regime change' is an American expression." The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. weakly replied: "The days of overthrowing leaders by military means in Europe -- those days are gone." Notice that little caveat: regime change is okay outside of Europe? He's correct, though, in that Russia's effort to "liberate" that very small number of Georgians who are ethnically Russian is very antiquated, more than a little reminiscent of early 20th-century German plots to redraw the map of Europe. Even with the demise of the USSR, Russia still thinks of most of their former imperial territories as "theirs."