By itself the Caucasus is a backwater. Nothing of significance can happen there. The danger is that it might pull outside powers in. This dustup is generally linked to the tension between the West and Russia and perhaps to Kosovo in particular. Russia swore revenge. Here’s the revenge.

Be that as it may, the key thing is to keep the big boys out of this. That bounds the danger. I think the circumstance that Bush is in Beijing with Sarkozy and God knows who else may help. It’s like a summit there, so maybe the leaders assembled can do a conference call with Vladimir Putin and get him to put some ice on it.

We gotta stay cool. The probability is that it will be a limited war if you let it alone. If Russia had a huge force ready to invade, we would have picked it up. Logistics over the Caucasus means that no multidivisional force can be projected over it for some time. Georgia won’t be overrun, not tomorrow anyway. It took the Russians some time to respond to the Chechens on the north side of the Caucasus. No need to panic — yet.