Breaking: Russia retaliates

VANO SHLAMOV/AFP/Getty Images

So it’s war.

Reuters is reporting that Russia has bombed a Georgian airbase near Tblisi, the capital, in retaliation for yesterday’s massive military incursion into South Ossetia. Russia has also sent troops into the breakaway region. A senior Georgian military official told the agency, “They have declared war against us.”

Georgia’s president Mikheil Saakashvili, a key U.S. ally in the Caucasus, is calling for American aid but I have to assume it’s next to impossible that the United States would sent troops into a messy civil war where they would be facing the Russia military. FP author Jon Sawyer’s warning is proving prescient.

However this ends, Georgia’s bid to join NATO is now effectively dead. In that sense, Russia has already won and the months of ratcheting up the pressure in the breakaway province seem to have paid off.