Russia vs. Georgia

Interesting it was only a few weeks ago that I first looked up South Ossetia, I dont think I posted on it, but I made a note to. This is essentially a breakaway region of Georgia, which Russia recognizes as autonomous in order to put pressure on the former Soviet Republic. Basically no one else recognizes South Ossetia, and so though it issues its own passports and citizenship, its meaningless. Thus, Russia, just trying to do a little bit of good in the world, offered dual citizenship to citizens of South Ossetia (a region of essentially zero political/military importance otherwise, in that it has no economy and no resources, the area is basically all subsistence farming).

It does not take much to figure out why Russia offered citizenship: when Georgia, as it is doing right now, tried to claim back the region, Russia can claim that Russians are under attack. And that is exactly what they are doing.

Yesterday, Georgia invaded South Ossetia to claim back the province. South Ossetia has no real military might, but in response to the Georgian invasion, Russia started air strikes against Georgia, many of them against civilian targets as an intimidation measure. As Georgia pressed on, Russia mobilized, and is now sending in ground forces. The importance and size of this conflict is not to be underestimated. First, Russia is showing that it will can crack down on the non-NATO ex-Soviet Republics, and unless we actually do something about it, they will continue to violate the rights and sovereignty of all other nations in the region. Soviet style (by a bunch of Soviet revisionists) war mongering has taken hold in Russia, the question is how far the US and the EU will let them push.