So much of the discussion about Georgia in the US media is full of it. Full of post-cold war withdrawal symptoms, I mean. This piece is no different. Russia is not lashing out at democracy - it has shown it can neatly control its elections in order to maintain the status quo, as so many other countries have. Russia is not lashing out at freedom - if anything, the problem in Russia is that "everything goes" there. Russia may have lashed out at the rule of law, as one of its goals was likely just to destabilize Georgia. But surely it also wanted to prove to Georgian leaders that the US was just bluffing and that they were foolish to believe in it.

It has been a turbulent decade, but Russia has gotten past much of its hangups from the Cold War. They've stopped touting the ideological politics that still drive Washington to invade countries around the world. They focus on their own narrow interests (perhaps more accurately: the interests of their ruling class). They had sound economic reasons to destabilize Georgia (oil/gas pipeline planned), as well as populist ones (historical enmity but also ill-advised Georgian taunting). This isn't the sign of Russia trying to re-establish the Soviet empire, but Russia acting in its own self-interest in its backyard.

On the other hand, the US is desperately trying to revive the threat of the Soviet colossus as a way to keep western countries from acting independently from Washington in the wake of the Iraq debacle. The recent rantings from Rice - claiming that NATO would stand by Georgia anyway - are an example of the irresponsible behaviour that lead Georgia to believe that it could simply ignore Russia, as well as the deep desire of the White House to speak for "the West" without actually bothering to consult those it claims to speak for.

No NATO country will go to war with Russia over Georgia. Not even the US. The US didn't go to war with Germany over Sudetenland or even Poland. Heck, it didn't go to war over Britain, France or Luxemburg either. It left those countries to fight on their own and only went to war after it was attacked itself. It's only under the Cold War spell that the US fought in wars it had no direct stakes in, such as Korea and Vietnam. Wether these wars were worth fighting is debatable, but it is clear that many politicians miss the old framework now that the USSR has gone. The attempt to replace the Soviet threat by the so-called islamofascist threat has failed - it's just too obvious that Al-Qaeda and its ilk don't pose an existential threat to western countries the way the good old USSR did. So now they're back to hyping Russia (and to a lesser degree China) as the enemy.

So what happens to Ukraine, and other former USSR countries now? Well, they can't pretend that Russia doesn't exist, just as Nicaragua, Columbia and Venezuela can't deny that the US exists. Geography is not open for debate: leaders of small countries adjacent to much bigger ones need to walk a thin line. That's how it always has been, and that's how it remains. Ukraine can continue to move westward, but it cannot frame its politics as oppositional to Russia. The art of doing this is called diplomacy. If Georgia or the US were any better at this, Georgia would not be in this predicament.

I beleive your analysis is very close to correct. We Americans fail to see how our actions are perceived by others. Our citizens accept the explnation that the missle shield is peaceful not threatining to Russia, but is against Iran. While Iran has exhibited no desire to attack Poland, Ukraine, or Belarus. We have gotten ourselves sucked into this world policeman role.

It is not working for us.

I agree that this hasn't anything to do with returning to an old Soviet framework.

Which Western countries would prefer to act independently of the US vis a vis Russia? Europe is more than happy to hold Uncle Sam's coat while he wrestles the bear. Sarkozy and Merkel reversed the policy of gaming the Americans for a Franco-German center to the EU. Thanks to the Irish and American wedge driving between "old" and "new," the EU is in no position to do anything meaningful

I have to think the current situation is less a symptom of Cold War era thinking and more of American hubris arising from post-Cold War overpromises. America had no business promising former satellites anything close to an alliance. Sell them weapons, train their forces. But never give the impression that the US would intervene militarily.

As Russia drives around Georgia blowing stuff up, in defiance of what it's promised through diplomatic channels, it is showing Georgia and other Russian neighbors that the US and its Sarkozies offer nothing more than bluster. This never was about Ossetia. It's about American overreaching on missles and 15+ years of making sure that Russia was reminded that it lost.

duhwayne, I think France and Germany are perfectly happy to work towards a European foreign policy, which has worked well for them in Iraq. In fact, it was France that got the truce agreement in Georgia worked out - not the US. But NATO's subsequent "diplomacy", led by Rice's incendiary statements and a stupidly timed agreement to deploy part of the "missile shield" component in Poland, made any chance of a rapid renormalization improbable. The US (and NATO) basically dared Russia to stay in Georgia, which, of course, it now has to do.

By the way, there's a lot of talk about the Russians having promised to withdraw completely in the peace agreement, but that's not what Russia agreed to (as reported on the BBC a few days ago). It agreed to return to the pre-war positions, which included "peacekeeping" Russian troops in South-Ossetia and Abkhazia, but with the addition of a new buffer zone (i.e. in Georgia itself). It was the death of several russian peacekeepers under Georgian artillery fire that provoked the Russian invasion in the first place.

But it's certainly true that Europe is happy to let Unkie Sam play the bad guy. He happens to be sooo good at it anyway...