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Russia and Georgia
The Mahablog — Whatever’s going on … see Robert Farley, The Duck of Minerva, A Fistful of Euros and Newshoggers for background and commentary.

Georgie-Russia: Another "No-one Could have Anticipated" Moment
Newshoggers.com — ... disintegration of the Soviet Union and has always been a potential source of conflict between Russia and Georgia, as has the region of Abkhazia. Attempting to get US cover for Georgian efforts to force the peoples of these regions to stay part of Georgia ( S.Ossetia's last referendum on the subject turned in a 97% majority for joining Russia instead) entirely explains Georgian keeness to send troops to Iraq and to join NATO. Georgia, despite its freedom-loving rhetoric, is probably marginally the more guilty party in sparking this conflict now - most likely in the hope of ...

Picking a Fight with Russia: Very Presidential
democracyarsenal.org — ... Seriously, nobody really knows what is going on there.  It could be that it is all Russia's fault, but the situation is likely much more complicated than that.  If we want to play a healthy and mediating role in stopping the violence, which is what McCain and Obama both claim to want to do, we should probably hold off on picking a fight.  Especially considering that we have other serious interests with the Russians who also happen to have a lot of nuclear weapons.  McCain promises ...

Mike’s Blog Round Up
Crooks and Liars — slacktivist: The point of the disgraceful new ad from the Low Road Express — the entire and only point of the ad — is to suggest that Sen. Barack Obama may be the Antichrist warned against in the pages of Left Behind. John McCain is a sleazy liar. Lawyers, Guns and Money: On the general principles of the Russia-Georgia issue MoJo Blog: First casualty of Gun-gate. cab drollery: That posturing wingers are confident their base will not notice they are bringing on disaster indicates ...

What's Going On In Georgia And How Dangerous A Game Is McCain Willing To Play With War & Peace?
DownWithTyranny! — ... . I'm old enough to remember when investigative journalists worked for TV news departments so I appreciate Farley's commentary. He is less sympathetic to the Georgian case because he thinks that "escalating the war (and providing an excuse for Russian counter-escalation) was a damn stupid thing for Saakashvili to do, and a remarkably damn stupid thing for him to do absent an extremely compelling cause. Small, weak states living next to abrasive, unpredictable great powers need to be extremely careful about what they do; in most cases, their foreign policy should, first and ...