However, being on the ground and pretty abreast of political developments, I cannot see how the US in any way wanted this war (as a proxy war, or anything). In fact, they did their best to try and stop Saakashvili (including, it appears, on the very night when the Georgians began moving). As has also transpired, Washington went into a sort of shock over that weekend, struggling to articulate a response. See also the ICG report on this. And, and, and…

So, there are good questions to consider, but the US encouraging Georgia to go into conflict isn’t a worthwhile debate.

In the second half of July 2008 the Russians ran a military exercise, code-named Caucasus 2008, near the Russian-Georgian border. The Russian exercise scenario included a counterattack in support of Russian “peacekeepers” after they had come under (unspecified) attack, with additional aims to protect Russian citizens and provide humanitarian assistance, and involved approximately 8,000 troops.

Interestingly enough, in response Georgian troops conducted an exercise of their own at the same time. Code-named Immediate Response 2008, it also included a thousand U.S. troops, along with smaller contingents from the Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Armenia.

There has been a lot of back and forth in the press and on many blogs, etc. re who “started” the war. One argument by the “Russia started the war” side that I’ve seen has been “the Russians must have been planning this, how else could they have mobilized so quickly in response?”

Well, they had just war gamed the entire episode a week before!! This raises the question of how smart it was of President Saakashvili to send in Georgian troops at this juncture, and why/how he could have been surprised by the Russian response! An “immediate response,” as it were…

http://ph2dot1.blogspot.com/2008/08/immediate-response.html