Uhh, no. Did British Colombia invade when Quebec tried to secede. No, they had a referendum. The same for the various underhandedness of the EU elites trying to trying to force through the EU constitution.

The biggest problem is that Russia is trying to play in the 21st according to 18th century rules. Someone needs to get across to them that that game is stupid. If there was any point to that game, the US would have won it a long time ago.

Until then, Russian nationalism is exclusively bad, and needs to be publicly acknowledged as such.

Your last comment makes my point for me–in reality, no states would ever be allowed to break away from the U.S. nowadays, but would be crushed by force. However, in the hypothetical world where these territories did break away Washington would do everything it could to thwart ties to other powers, up to and including the use of force. The people cheering loudest for that would be very much like the people complaining the most about Russia today. How much less remarkable is it, then, that Russia wants to maintain a sphere of influence that does not include military alliances with a major power?

That said, Russia’s ambitions in Georgia or Ukraine or the Baltic States, (or the former Warsaw Pact for that matter) are a total fraud for anyone who cares at all for the legitimacy of rule.

Let’s realize that Russia ruled these lands until 1991 as the scourge of humanity for the better part of a century and these lands were among the most victimized. There has unfortunately been little if any accountability from Russia since then, and that is one substantial factor why it has remained a basket case for 20 years.

Comparing that to some breakaway American states is ridiculous, most of all from Daniel considering he is not exactly ignorant of the US Civil War and how it was eventually resolved.

People believe in the “expansionist Russia” meme so easily (at least those who remember the Cold War) because they still make the idiotic mistake of conflating the Soviet Union with Russia. As the late Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, no one suffered more from Soviet rule than Russia and her people.

If it’s an old regional conflict, the “expansionist Russia” notion is overblown to say the least.

Under the status quo ante, Russia wasn’t invading or dismembering Georgia and was not likely to do either had Saakashvili not given them the opportunity. Are the Russians partly responsible insofar as they back the Ossetians? I suppose, but that is the way it has been for almost two decades now. There was no reason to escalate the conflict righ now, except that Saakashvili thought he could get away with it. He failed horribly, and he must bear the lion’s share of the blame for this conflict that he chose to ratchet up.

International order requires a certain legitimacy, which in turn must be undergirded by some moral principles. One of the lessons of the 1930s was that realpolitik doesn’t work. A state that thinks its “legitimate influence on its periphery” includes the right to invade and dismember its democratic neighbors cannot fit into that international order and will continue to be a threat until it changes its ways. You can’t fudge that.

Svante Cornell’s excellent article, as well as a good deal of other coverage, refutes your claim that Saakashvili was the one who started this. It may or may not be “the war that Russia wanted,” but at the very least, the blame is on both sides.