Cedarford,

If you read my comments I have not advocated any attacks on Russia by any forces. Any deployments to allied countries. It’s common practice to send a signaling force forward, but not provocatively forward and usually as an aid to diplomacy. If you want to convince Georgia to pull back you must also convince Tblisi that their core country will be guaranteed. How do you send that signal? You send it by some symbolic, but nonprovocative gesture.

With regard to the Ossetians, I believe you are right about their closeness to Moscow and I am wrong. However, I am uncertain whether that closeness amounts to a desire for actual incorporation into Russia and not independence.