They might not be 100% defeated, but I’m not sure how long many Georgians would be willing to live like hunted bandits in the South Caucuses, while their main road, railroad and pipeline are severed and under Russian control. Geography just doesn’t work in the Georgians’ favor here. In no time, most Georgians (like most people, for example, the Lithuanian resistors of the late 40s and early 50s) would give up and accept domination in heated homes over freezing to death in a “forest brotherhood.”
Perhaps you're right. But I still think it'd give the Russians some pause to know they were going to invade a nation with 500,000 trained riflemen who would, at least initially, give the Cossacks and Chechens a very, very bloody nose.
Yamamoto's response to the question of if he was going to invade America is instructive, although not very applicable to this situation.
"Of course not. There would be a scoped rifle behind every blade of grass."
It's also no longer 1950. The Georgians wouldn't be alone in this. The Ukrainians and the Poles know they're next if they don't stand up this time.
Even the Belarussians aren't all that enthusiastic about supporting their Russian brothers.
Personally I think we could bring this thing to a halt if Western banks just froze the assets of the Russian kleptocracy until Putin pulled his troops out. That's what this is really about.
The oil and the money that flows to the crooks who 'own' those companies.
L