Georgia - not the Ray Charles one

Did this war in Georgia come out of nowhere? Now 1,500 are dead. I vaguely remember an economist article way back on the tensions - mainly over a proposed pipeline through Georgia that Putin didn't want (because he's got a Petrostate ... using all the oil/gas reserves as his main weapon ... remember Yukos?). Anyway, here's a good wrap up of the background on the conflict and where it stands.

In sum:

Georgia’s predicament seems very simple from the vantage point of Tbilisi — 1921, 1938 — but extremely complicated from a great remove. Russia threatens Georgia, but Georgia threatens Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russia looks like a crocodile to Georgia, but Georgia looks to Russia like the cats’ paw of the West. One party has all the hard power it could want, the other all the soft. And now, while the world was looking elsewhere, the frozen conflict between them has thawed and cracked. It will take a great deal of care and attention even to put things back to where they were before.