More generally, while the United States remains the most important actor in world affairs, it’s ridiculous hubris to think that everything that happens in the world is a reaction to American policy.

Not everything James, only the bad things. At least, while there is a Republican president.

And so what international expertise do you bring to the table to enable you to make such judgement?

I could just as easily ask you the same question when you make one of your nearly constant calls for us to start wars.

You position that American citizens should not have a voice in matters of war and peace is duly noted. Its pretty standard Bushie fare...

And so what international expertise do you bring to the table to enable you to make such judgement?

Please.

So am I.

While you have your thinking cap on, ponder all the great powers who have bled themselves on unnecessary military adventures, and ended up being not so great powers...

I am thinking about the future, not the past.

So am I.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. ---George Santayana

Georgia started with killing 13 Russian peacekeepers that were stationed in South Ossetia according to the signed agreement.

That's certainly Russia's side of things. But...Try digging a little deeper, Nikolay. Hint: JohnG's on the right track.

In the just and fair and civilized world

What part of the world is that? Ours? Where torture sessions are directed from the White House...

If that's the way things really went down, it would be akin to allowing South Korea to fire mortar and missile attacks at North Korea, but expect that North Korea would do nothing to retaliate, and if they did and Americans were killed we would be justified in conquering North Korea. Surely most people taking Russia's side now would call BS if the US tried to make the same argument.

But re your critique of the Bush-43 Administration's "cheerleading" (not an inapt phrase) for Georgia's NATO admission, I respectfully disagree:

Yours, I gather, is the argument that we ought not surround Russia with NATO tripwires, because that will guarantee that we ultimately will be called upon to act to defend a NATO ally, and you obviously believe that if Georgia had gotten the NATO membership for which the Bush-43 Administration had been a cheerleader, Russia would have invaded it anyway and we wouldn't have honored our NATO obligations to help defend it.

Obviously we're both speculating, but I think your speculation is less persuasive than mine, which is that Russia would not have invaded the parts of Georgia other than the contested provinces if Georgia had indeed been a NATO member. (It well might have "re-enforced" its so-called "peacekeepers" in the disputed provinces, but if that were done in response to Georgia's attempt to expel them, and they were already in situ upon Georgia's admission, that would present a much finer point as to whether Russia's limited re-enforcement triggered any NATO joint defense obligations, wouldn't it?)

Russia has never before invaded a NATO member. The trip-wires have worked, so far. In the just and fair and civilized world that our doctrine and foreign policy ought to envision, the trip-wires wouldn't encumber Russia from doing anything it ought not do anyway.

Your view seems to have as its premise that the Bear cannot be contained or managed, and that we therefore must leave some vulnerable smallish states adjacent to it, lest we make it too nervous and so that it will have convenient snacks when it grows hungry. That's a cynical and hard-hearted view, if it's indeed yours.

I believe the Bear should be contained. I believe we should continue to articulate and follow a clear policy in which invading one's neighbors is not acceptable conduct. I believe we should be consistent, and that policy ought be applied to Georgia or Ukraine as willingly as to Poland or France or the U.K.

Given that the cheerleading failed, and that Georgia didn't get the NATO admission we and it sought, then its leadership ought to have been more careful about giving Russia fig leaves to cover the broad military campaign that the Russians were obviously eager to conduct anyway.

But I utterly reject your conclusion that it was reckless, or thoughtless, for the Bush-43 Administration to support Georgia's NATO membership, and I reject the notion that Saakashvili's arguable rashness somehow proves that we displayed a lack of diligence in thinking through the consequences of our cheerleading. You're guilty of the same sin you correctly attribute to Marshall, that of thinking that everything is all about us, or that when something has gone badly, it must be America's fault somehow, if only to have failed to be so enlightened as to anticipate and somehow prevent it.

The fault here is Russia's, and Russia's alone, who seemingly can't get over the idea that they are no longer the power they once were, largely due to their own excesses.

Georgia started with killing 13 Russian peacekeepers that were stationed in South Ossetia according to the signed agreement. That was an act of war. How would you like US to act if another country committed an act of war against it?
Was it a crime for Israel to bomb Lebanon in 2006?

Had you forgotten who won that one?

I am thinking about the future, not the past. Our dominant position in the world is not written in the stars...

An interesting point, and an inadvertent warning to ourselves...

Here again, you try a 'gotcha' moment and it falls flat. Had you forgotten who won that one?