Very interesting to see the international reaction to Russia’s recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russia is a gap state — a Central Asian dictatorship best analyzed in terms of functionally similar countries such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and the Kyrgyz Republic — and its invasion of Georgia was an attempt to increase the amount of wealth it could extract from the Core. It appears that the Functioning Core is closing ranks, and expressing its near-unanimous disapproval of Russia’s use of war as a tool of politics.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s an incompetent when it comes to foreign policy, and the Georgia debacle is no exception. If you look close at the map, you see that he has even brought Serbia and Kosovo together!
