The Return of the Russian Bear

The fighting this week in Georgia marks the return of the big bad Russian Bear. He has slowly been reawakening for the last several years and now with Putin pulling the strings it has reawakened with a roar of defiance. The bear has been slowly flexing his muscles with the fighting that has taken place in Chechnya over the last several years under the guise of fighting Islamic terrorists. Now all pretense is gone and the Russians are letting all the new republics that formed after the fall of the Soviet Union know that they had better toe the line or else.
The Georgian president, Saakashvili, while a problematic leader had been trying to align his country more closely with the US and NATO. The Russians and Putin were very upset with this. In fact Russia has been upset when any of the former Soviet Block countries that have made overtures to NATO and the US. Saakashvili made the mistake of taking military action to try and bring back two break away areas of Georgia. The people in these two areas have always felt more in common with Russia than Georgia and Russia has used this to their advantage. So when the Georgian military marched in they asked the Russians for protection and the Russian's are using this as a way to rid themselves of a leader that they don't like and can't control.
Saakashvili made several big mistakes in this crisis. First and foremost he completely misread the Russian response to his military actions. Secondly he thought that he would get more support from the US and NATO. The US is so tied up in Afghanistan and Iraq that there is nothing that we can do because we have nothing to spare. NATO can do nothing without the US, so Georgia has nothing but sternly worded messages and general but nonspecific condemnation of the Russian's actions.
There are larger implications here beyond the suffering of the Georgian people. Russia is back and badder than ever and they are spoiling for a fight or at least a confrontation with the West. The fighting in Georgia is the first act in the New Cold War. The next president is going to have more to worry about than withdrawal timetable from Iraq and the economy, he is going to have a confront a resurgent Russia. Yes, the Russian Bear is back and looking for trouble.