I’d love to see a cite for that. (No mouth-breathing, please.)

Russia: Caucasus :: US : Central America is an interesting comparison, but it breaks down fairly quickly. On one hand, Central America was never part of the US. On the other, there were no other powers with major interests there — the short-lived Soviet presence in Nicaragua was strategic speculation, nothing more. The Caucasus is a region of nontrivial interest to Western Europe, the US, and the two regional powers, Iran and Turkey.

And, of course, the US never had a strategic near-disaster in Central America to compare to the Russian experience in Chechnya.

That’s what comes to mind when I hear people wondering how bad this can get. Paradoxically, it makes me think /not so bad/. Why? Because I can’t see Putin sending ground troops into Georgia; and I can’t see Saakashili getting deposed any other way. Killed, okay, but not overthrown.

So, while there may be much yelling and shaking of fists on both sides, it shouldn’t become a shooting war unless someone is *very* stupid. And if it doesn’t, eventually there’ll be a realization that nobody is going anywhere, and things will cool down.

(Though, this being the Caucasus, that could take a while — the Armenia/Azerbaijan border has been closed since 1992, and counting.)

Doug M.

Meanwhile the BBC reports that Russian schools have been ordered to draw up lists of pupils with Georgian surnames. That doesn’t sound good.

Still, it’s an interesting notion.

Doug M.

They do. Nevertheless geography is important. What is sensible from the viewpoint of somebody on another continent need not be sensible to anybody in continental Europe.

To me this is increasingly looking like Russia wants to treat Georgia the way the US treated Panama fifty years ago.

Yes. And nobody was stupid enough to stand up for Panama.

I have no idea what you are talking about here. 20 years ago, Gorgia was part of the Soviet Union under a repressive Communist regime, not it is a somewhat corrupt democracy fighting off Russia. What precisely in the demographics or geography has changed so radically in the past twenty years to produce such a change in people’s lives? Politics and ideas do matter.

It does look now like Russia is not going to back down. The sanctions continue, and now Russians are trying to put all the Georgians in Russia out of business. To me this is increasingly looking like Russia wants to treat Georgia the way the US treated Panama fifty years ago.

Geography changes rarely in human timescales, demographics and natural resources only in decades.
Nevertheless, this is not strictly true. Russia occupying all Georgia would be another matter. But Russia would not do that.

That’s more than Russia is willing to risk right now, especially as oil prices keep dropping.

A little bit of decisive action might help on the latter front.