I’m not prepared to believe for one second that this is about South Ossetia or about Kosovo. In my humble opinion: this is about NATO. A NATO-allied Georgia with access to oil and the revenue it would bring, would be able to field a significant force on Russia’s southern border. I believe that this is a calculated move to either eliminate Georgia entirely or otherwise make it militarily useless to NATO.
There are a couple of potential intentions I can surmise on the part of the Russians, but all would have the effect of militarily neutralizing Georgia:
1. Completely take over the country and install a puppet regime.
2. Proceed to the Armenian border (assuming they plan to stop there!), splitting the country in two.
- This denies Georgia Black Sea port access, which prevents (1) NATO coming to their aid by sea and (2) denies them revenue.
- This also allows Russia to cut the oil pipeline from Georgia to Turkey which denies them oil revenue.
That’s not to say that I’m an apologist for Russia (quite the opposite!) but I think that this is what they’re aiming at. I don’t know what can be done for Georgia at this point (hightail it from Turkey to secure the pipeline?), but one thing we should do ASAP is fast-track Ukraine’s NATO MAP. That needs to be issued yesterday.
If it was just about S. Ossethia, then they'd stop there... Also, if it was about S.O., then it takes away any claim Russia had about Kosovo, cause they just did the same thing (yet far worse)..