I disagree that the Georgians started it. They tried to block a piece of their territory from breaking away. How is that “starting it”?
When a six year old cease fire exists, guaranteed by a multilateral peace keeping force, where hostilities have ceased there exists a “state of peace.” or at least relative calm and a prolonged sessation of violence and military hostilities.
When one commences to fire artillery into that zone, lacking any recent specific act to which one is responding that is what I call “starting it”.
For instance, if the South Koreans were to decide that they were no longer happy with the partition and DMZ and started bombing and shelling North Korea tomorrow I would say they are “starting it”. They might have reasons for starting it that I find valid: such as “it should never have been partitioned, our cousins are starving under that mad-man, he is bringing dishonor to the Korean race, all Koreans must liver under democracy, or many others one could imagine.
Regardless of their reasons though, they would be “starting it” if they decided to start shelling.
And that is exactly what the Georgians did. Pretty simple really. Pretty stupid too. “Don’t start a fight you can’t finish” is an old but still useful rule to remember.