Georgia had it coming

The speed and scale of Russian retaliation in South Ossetia and now in Georgia have surprised the Western diplomats. But there had been signs for years that Georgia and Russia were methodically and quietly, inching towards a conflict.
Several long-term factors had also contributed to the possibility of war. They include the Kremlin’s military successes in Chechnya. It gave Russia the latitude and sense of internal security, needed to free up troops to cross its borders. The exuberant support of the United States for President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, acted as fuel to the fire. Saakashvili is a figure the Russians loathe both personally and politically.

Misguided notions
Moreover, by preparing Georgian soldiers for duty in Iraq, the United States appeared to have helped embolden Georgia, inadvertently, to enter a fight it could not win.
As a result, the war risked becoming a foreign policy catastrophe for the United States. Its image and authority in the region are now in question. To one and all, it had proved itself unable to assist Georgia and also to restrain the Russians when they went on offensive.
Russian bureaucratic and military groundworks were laid even before Mr. Saakashvili came to power in 2004. As he positioned himself as one of the world’s most strident critics of the Kremlin, the Russians were not amused.

The issue of cityzenship
Under the presidency of Vladimir V. Putin, Russia had already been granting citizenship and distributing passports to virtually all of the adult residents of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Later being the much larger separatist region where Russia had also massed troops over the weekend. The West had been skeptical of the validity of Russia’s handing out passports by the thousands to citizens of another nation.
“Having a document does not make you a Russian citizen,” one American diplomat said in 2004, as Russia expanded the program.
But whatever the legal merits, the Kremlin had laid the foundation for one of its public relations arguments for invading. It could safely say its army was only coming to the aid of Russian citizens under foreign attack.

Misplaced courage
In the ensuing years, even as Russia issued warnings, Mr. Saakashvili grew bolder. There were four regions out of Georgian control when he took office in 2004, but he restored two smaller regions, Ajaria in 2004 and the upper Kodori Gorge in 2006.
The victories gave him a sense of momentum. He kept national reintegration as a central plank of his platform. Russia, however, began retaliating against Georgia in many ways. It cut off air service and mail between the countries, closed the border and refused Georgian exports. By the time the Kodori Gorge was back in Georgian control, Russia had also consolidated its hold over Chechnya, which is now largely managed by a local leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, and his Kremlin-backed Chechen forces.
The control of Chechnya had for years been the preoccupation of Russian ground forces. Kadyrov’s strength had enabled Russian to garrison many of its forces and turn its attention elsewhere.