This is a brutal, passionate and, yes, partisan film about the Russian-led military offensive against the republic of Georgia in 2008, just as the glamorous Olympics were opening in Beijing.
When Georgia then banned Russian military flights in its air space, Russia's top military commander promptly accused Georgia of allowing hundreds of Chechen fighters to mass on its border, a dangerous accusation that Georgia has always denied.
Deputy Defense Minister Mamuka Kudava says the Iraq experience is a vital part of Georgia's military strategy.
As a result of these initiatives by the Russian military, the days of Shevardnadze's government may be numbered in Georgia and a long-time communist apparatchik with close ties to Moscow, Geidar Aliyev, has taken power in Azerbaijan.
Washington has poured more than a billion dollars worth of aid, including military help, into Georgia since the Soviet collapse.
Georgian security officials this week said they had seized a large batch of arms en route to Chechnya sold by soldiers from one of Russia's own military bases in Georgia.
Instead, we see the full fury of the Russian military and mercenary allies directed against Georgia and the Georgians.
Edward Shevardnadze, Georgia's president, saw Russia's hand behind a small military rebellion in western Georgia, which disrupted construction of the pipeline last October.
The report nevertheless says that Georgia's claim of a big military incursion by Russia into South Ossetia before August 8th is not sufficiently substantiated.
Russian politicians accused Georgia of trying to cover up its own military blunder in the Pankisi gorge.
In May George Bush visited Tbilisi to give public support to Mikhail Saakashvili, the pro-western president of Georgia, who is trying to close down Russian military bases on his soil Russia says it will leave by 2008 and regain control over Russian-backed separatist enclaves.
ECONOMIST: The EU's relations with Russia are bad and may get worse
Similarly, a huge increase in defence spending and a lot of well-directed western military aid does not on its own make Georgia a prime candidate to join NATO, desirable though that might be for other reasons.
Apart from that hitch, its faster progress in military reform, better hardware and more troops ought to put Ukraine comfortably ahead of Georgia in the membership stakes.
ECONOMIST: Russian worries about Western encirclement are premature
This came only a few days after Mr Obama said that America recognises Georgia's territorial integrity and does not want a renewal of military conflict.
The incidents in India and Georgia came a day after the anniversary of the assassination of Hezbollah military chief Imad Mughniyeh in 2008, a bombing for which the Lebanese organization vowed revenge against Israel.
Moscow maintains a military presence in a number of former Soviet republics and fought a short, inconclusive conflict with Georgia in 2008.
America has enough on its military and diplomatic plate, without allowing a situation like the Georgia mess to spin out of control, due to a combination of sloppy thinking, inattention, lack of focus and mindless preoccupations.
CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Russia vs. Georgia: Four painful lessons
In September 2006, Moscow cut off transportation and trade ties with the former Soviet republic of Georgia and deported hundreds of Georgians after officials in Tbilisi briefly arrested four Russian military officers on espionage charges.
Georgia's decision to join the Commonwealth of Independent States and to request Russian military intervention is just the latest indication of the success of this strategy.
CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Watch This Space: Russian Military's Chits Being Cashed In
Ominous developments in Georgia and Azerbaijan over the past month suggest that one of the things that the military and other securityapparatuses want is to reestablish the lost Soviet empire, in whole or in part.
But to demonstrate that the EU is united in condemning the scale of Russia's reaction to Saakashvili's military action in South Ossetia and its re-drawing of the regional boundaries by force, the EU has promised Georgia strong economic and political support.
Mr Ivanov, on a visit to Georgia this week, also refused to close his country's remaining military bases there, and insisted that a Russian-dominated peacekeeping force should remain in Abkhazia, a breakaway region of Georgia that is backed by the Kremlin.
应用推荐