Summary: The brief war in Georgia in August 2008 has ushered in a new era in international relations -- although likely not the "new cold war" that so many analysts have rushed to declare. In this month's article, Stephen F. Jones, one of the world's foremost specialists on Georgia, explores the origins of this summer's fighting. The war's main protagonists -- Georgians, Ossetians, Abkhaz, and Russians -- have had a long and tangled history, made worse by the swirling nationalism that accompanied the break-up of the Soviet Union, the promise of free-flowing petrodollars, and Russia's international resurgence.
