I’ve seen no angle yet along these lines:

For one: Russian troops have been in South Ossetia for years as ‘peace keepers’.
For another: the South Ossetians have had their own army. This was largely started by the South Ossetian army running raids in Georgia and the Russians responding when Georgia decided enough was enough.
And on top of that: Russia has been playing the nation of South Ossetia as a puppet state long before this has occurred. They have had billboards posting Putin as ‘our president’. Note they say they act in protection of ‘Russians’ instead of ‘South Ossetians’ as if South Ossetia was part of Mother Russia from the beginning.

This reminds me of Korea before the Korean war. This is nothing new. The Chinese/USSR using the North Koreans as a pawn to attack the Republic of Korea, then countering when China was in ‘danger.’ This is why I worry so much for Georgia. If anything, I wish the best for their army, and hope privately we have the balls to do something. We may not even have to send troops or planes. If they hole up in the Lower Caucasus we can do a repeat of Afganistan sending arms and armaments under the table (they seem to do the same thing). Heck, I’m all for sending nukes if need be (the chinese have done it. Putin’s done it with Iran. You bug our allies with profliferated nukes, we bug you with ‘em too). I personally think we already have nukes in South Korea.