I am with CPT Charles here, and not just because he is my friend, either. This is a finely-timed power grab by Putin. He intends to knock Georgia down a few pegs, damage its primary economic asset (the oil pipeline), reaffirm Russian regional prominence regarding said asset, and also benefit from the resulting hit on Georgian nationalism from the war. Ossetia nationalism is just a Trojan horse for Russian power grabbing and scaring a Europe made of EUnuchs and East Bloc nations barely recovered from half a century of being Soviet provinces. Never mind the jibber-jabber on the news channels, this is the same old Bear, roaring and brandishing its claws, that we’ve known before the illusory Nineties.