The simple answers are usually best. The reasons the Russians stopped were twofold in my opinion. First they are cautious, I noted that they took a long time to get Tskhinvali, they had resistance and were cautious and took an extra day to invest the town.

I believe logistics and the dug in positions at Mtskheta made the Russian stop. Also Russian had a reason not to take Tbilisi, which were all the leaders and diplomats arriving in the city. If they tried to take that with all those heads of state that were there today then that would got Russia involved with a multi-country war.

I think that Bush’s statement meant more in diplospeak and was very terse to the Russian rather than to the public. The public are used to our leader talking a lot. When they give very short statements it means that heavy planning is going down.

Russian does not want to piss off Bush who will take action if forced. Once he does he is unmovable to change his position. It is better for others not to force Bush into action. He statement had a lot of “must” not “should “ statements. We can airlift and fly from Turkey and devil take the consequences if we decide it is really needed. But we do not wish to do so for a two-bit squabble over S.Ossetia. Those consequences could be loss of Incirlik basing if we disregard Turkey’s wishes. So the message is do not push us.

We can go into the Black Sea and destroy the Russian Navy but that could scare Russia to threaten nuclear retaliation. We have too much responsibility to the world to risk that lightly.

Better if small wars stay small wars and do not become large wars with devastation to a lot of countries.