The FINANCIAL — Every country which borders Russia to the West and South now has a choice: Do you want to be an American ally or do you want to come back into Moscow's sphere of influence?
A Georgian man comforts his injured relative as the battle heats up
The South Ossetian conflict is about much more that a small disputed backwater, it's the battleground for Russian and American foreign policy.
After the Russian empire collapsed, along with the Berlin Wall, its former colonies raced towards the West and independence. The Baltic States, Poland, Ukraine, Georgia and others all became pro western, Georgia in particular. Russia saw its influence wane throughout the 1990s.
In this decade it watched in alarm as former 'allies' joined Nato and saw the Americans planning to build a missile defence system right on its border. It saw a threat coming from the same direction it had been invaded from over the past 200 years.
The last straw came this year with the inability of Moscow to prevent the secession of Kosovo from Serbia.
Georgia is the line it would not allow to be crossed. Moscow had supported the South Ossetians and the breakaway region of Abkhazia; it has troops in both areas.
Once the Georgians crossed into South Ossetia the die was cast. Russia could not allow its troops to be pushed out.
It had to act quickly. If the Georgian army commanded all the heights above the South Ossetian capital and then made it to the Roki tunnel then the Russian army would have a much harder job to do.
The Roki tunnel is the main crossing point into Russia and it's also a choke point. The Russians had to move at speed and move up to the capital.
It was an easy decision. It was war. And it was a message to every country in the region: "You're on our border, not America's."
By Tim Marshall, Foreign affairs editor, FOX News (US)
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