Likely outcomes of the Georgian/ Russian war.
The US in humanitarian mode will be there for a while, months at least. Increased training of Georgian military, upgrades to communications to replace what was damaged, upgrades to air security. I do not think the US want to give high-grade AA systems to Georgia and Georgia cannot afford. So some type of air cover will be discussed and provided. This will have to be agreed to by the Russian to their dismay; we do not want future accidents between Russian Air Forces and US. If Russia refuses we can do it anyway with more risk.
S. Ossetia and Abkhazia will not have Russian peacekeepers after this. The US have a policy that we do not like to have to do things over, Russia and Georgia got our attention and this boiling pot is going to taken off the stove. Europe will provide the monitors.
That is a loss for Russia. They gambled we would grumble and acquiesced and we did not.
Shaaskavilli will be told to shut up for a while and not do more provoking statements. The US is not happy to be dragged into a US- Russia conflict. WE have tried to avoid that for 45 years and not happy that Georgia made it happen.
We will leave alone the Turkish enclave in Georgia, they were not involved and we do not want to upset Turkey.
Russia may not realize it yet, but Georgia will be in the US sphere of influence. After fighting two wars over German ambitions, The US decided no more. It only took one war with Japan for the US to decided no more. The same will be with Georgia but with a lighter footprint.
The US had an unnamed policy of if the US has to go to war then we make the defeated nation over in our image as much as possible. We broke with that policy in 1991 with Iraq and since it was not completed, we had to go back. Iraq is now being rebuilt, so it will no longer be a possible threat and we have the strategic center of the Middle East.
Georgia succeeded in its ambitions to get US protection, but it paid a large price with the Russian destruction to the infrastructure.
Poti commercial seaport will get loans for upgrades so we can deliver goods. Georgia just became a US trading partner. Ukraine will probably get more trade, with US casually in the area. Boon for Romania trade also. The Black Sea will not be exclusively Russian anymore.
US will probably put in signals intelligent monitoring systems in the area. It makes sense. NATO will fast track Ukraine and Georgia in December. The argument that it would bring us closer to war with Russia is moot. That risk happened when Georgia was rejected. It was the German defense minister who rejected Georgia before, who said they ought to reapply and the Georgian – Russian war would not deter that process.
Short term the Russians can say they won to their own people. Long term Russia lost influence over the Black Sea region. The US will not have greater entanglement in the Caucasus. This makes the need to get Iran under control greater than before.
This may change the calculation to just bombing Iranian nuclear processing plants into a more long term plan to over turn the regime. Personally I would take out the nukes plants and try for a CIA regime change. But that will be tricky to manage.
I suspect that in the future the US will go back to the 1950 style of using black ops to effect regime change into our favor, If we had not been squeamish about taking out Chavez was he was first being elected then the Venezuelan problem would not be here today and the spread of his ideas to Bolivia.
Of course that presumes that McCain will win this election. Which I believe is probable. I do not think McCain will be onboard with CIA active in effecting regime changes but his Republican successor will be more likely to see it is cheaper than going to war.
