Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili, perhaps believing that as the third highest supplier of troops to the Iraq "coalition" he had the protection of an American umbrella that, I guess, he expected to convince Russia not to intervene to protect the Ossetians and the hundreds of millions of dollars of developmental money Russia has poured into Ossetia.  

Perhaps he believed too strongly in Bush's doctrine that it is okay to invade any other country you want for any reason you want as long as you think you can get away with it.  For years he has been building up his military (with considerable help from Washington), and on August 7, Georgia initiated an unprovoked invasion of Ossetia and tried to surround and capture its capital.  The next day, August 8, Russia responded by sending in a massive counterforce.

It is typical of the administration and its sockpuppet mainstream media to immediately portray this as a Russian invasion of Georgia, conveniently not mentioning that Georgia started the war by invading Ossetia and threatening Russian citizens who make up the great majority of its population.  

The Russians stopped because they made their point... and the KNEW (not thought, KNEW) that the West would do nothing.

At this point, Russia has made a point and has given themselves a huge victory.  Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are thanking their lucky stars that they are protected by NATO.  Ukraine and Georgia have no such protection and both are going to worry about having the yoke of Russian will reimposed on them.  Ukraine actually has a bigger problem due to its inherent population divide.  

Georgia may not be perfect. But even though Bush has done no end of mistakes in foreign policy, I still trust a mostly democratic country that's garnered the support of the US, Britain, France, and much of the EU.

1. An article appears in which our State Department ducks. They claim that they told the President of Georgia specifically not to initiate a military confrontation with Russia, and he did it anyway without telling them until after it was done and the call came in that "The Russians are attacking us," apparently without mentioning that he had sent his troops to take back South Ossetia by force first. Who knows if it is true, but that is now the line from State.

2. A ceasefire was negotiated rather quickly, although what is happening on the ground is not clear. The party who ran it around was Mr. Sarkozy from France. The ceasefire requires the parties to return to wherever they were before the shooting started, which means the Russians are still in Abkhazia and SO, and the Georgians are apparently not.