Russia-Georgia: A World War I Sequential?

The conflict between Russia and Georgia goes back a long time. It is a complex situation where a lot of ethnicity plays a role of the conflict. Some put conflicts as these in terms of "The Curse of the Mountain People". As usual, political borders drawn on a map without putting any or very little thought into ethnical groups. In South Ossetia, where a lot of Russians live, have for long been bullied by Georgia, which has a history of solving conflicts via armed conflicts rather than diplomacy. For instance, the Abchazia war right when the Soviet Union fell which led to a lot of bad blood in the region, and in particular from the big Russian Bear. The situation does not become better as Georgia has close ties to both the EU and NATO.

The Georgian ties or alliances with EU, NATO and the US are probably the most frightening components of the conflict. The situation is clearly pretty infected and could with some bad luck become a prestige conflict between Russia and the West. The analogies with the complex alliance systems in Europe right before World War I is very very frightening. Let us hope that we do not get to experience a sequential of the triggering shot in Sarajevo. Brrr.