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Over the line

The latest report from Georgia is that Russian units have moved out of South Ossetia and deeper into the heart of Georgia, ostensibly to prevent further Georgian strikes into South Ossetia. Mikheil Saakashvili has alternated between saying that his forces have knocked down a whole bunch of Russian planes and saying that Russia is committing premeditated murder of a small country, and that the world is obligated to come in to help.

These are not necessarily mutually exclusive claims, of course. When one compares the size of the Georgian and Russian military and sees that the Russians have very little else to take care of right now, one has to wonder what the long-term plan was on the Georgian military side. It may have been "start some violence, and hope NATO or at least the US has our back." The Russian government, on the other hand, may have made the probably more reasonable assessment that very few people over on the NATO side relish the idea of going to war against Russia -- especially over an issue that is as unclear as that of regaining a separatist province.

CNN article
BBC article
al Jazeera article

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