UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown says there is "no justification" for Russia's military action in Georgia.

I am not convinced that there is "no justification" for Russia's actions but it has not been a limited or proportionate response and the Georgian leader was either being bloody stupid in starting military action or expected the West to come to his aid and was trying to manipulate us. This sort of brinkmanship by the Georgian government is extremely dangerous. However the Russian military has been let off the leash and the Russians should negotiate not flatten Georgia. Talk at the UN by the US about Russia invading sovereign nations sounds hypocritical after Iraq but something needs to be said and the violence needs to be brought to a stop. If South Ossetia wants to be independent like Kosovo then so be it. However the Chechnyans didn't get that choice so it is extremely hypocritical of the Russians to argue the case now and self serving.

The situation makes the Caucusus seem like the Balkans at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century with tiny states playing very dangerous games thus extending an invitation to join NATO to Georgia becomes extremely dangerous and a short cut to a global conflagration. Do we have to repeat history and get drawn into their petty vicious squabbles? Repeating the Great Powers games of previous eras is stupid and resulted to 2 World Wars. Russia is reasserting its military power. Our best long term strategy is to stop fueling their economy which is only propped up by oil and natural gas. Short term there is a lot of nationalism in play in the region and Russian pride. The horse we have in this race is stability. The only meaningful weapon we have are sanctions and neither Europe or America is placed or ready to use that weapon in a meaningful way we have to start acting to change that situation. We are largely impotent to respond but we note their behaviour and should start being a little more frosty to the Russians and more frosty to those who seek to manipulate us in their conflicts with Russia. At the moment there is a buffer between NATO and Russia and I think we need to put some diplomatic effort into maintaining that buffer rather than eroding it with invites to NATO.

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