The small nation of Georgia, a former member of the USSR that broke away and declared independence in 1991, has recently become something of a proxy battleground for the interests of Moscow and those of the West. As with Ukraine, NATO and the EU have flirted with getting Georgia to join, mainly as it would increase cooperation in Russia’s immediate neighborhood, and also reinforce the ever-important buffer zone. Although it hasn’t made up its mind yet, Georgia is very strategically located - it shares a border with Turkey, the Black Sea, and has already served as a staging area for US aircraft in the Iraq war, using airbases that are approximately 200 miles from the Iranian border.

Russia, for its part, has taken advantage of a situation with two Georgian provinces that want to declare independence of their own - Abkhazia and South Ossentia. The Russians have increased forces in the area and support the two separatist states. This seems to be an attempt to balance the situation with Kosovo’s recent declaration of independence, which the West supported and Russia and China both opposed.  In some ways, this echoes recent incidents of Russia throwing its weight around to pressure its smaller neighbors (particularly Ukraine) concerning oil and gas.  Although the possibility of the two areas becoming fully independent is small, Russia is in a good position to use it as leverage to at least delay Georgia from entering into an alliance with the West. Now, the task before NATO is to either find an effective way to neutralize the Russian move, or decide between Georgia and Ukraine if one or the other decides to back out.