Well, how many of You were living in Soviet Union or the countries under the reign of SU. Ioan knows waht he is talking about. This Georgian incident reminded me a little bit of estonian Bronze soldier thing, which was clearly provoked by Russia's authotrities. They are stretching their muscles and at the moment just trying to see how West would react. And take a very good notice for the fact that most of the big European countries are now dependent - like Germany for example. Luckily our military did not came and tried to force local "stupid" russians (were only about 3000-5000 people) - Putin would've invaded us immediately. Putin was very upset and humiliated when SU was destroyed and he now tries to bring back this monster regime by using different methods. Let's do not forget that he is ex KGB guy, so he knows all the tricks needed.
I think that Western countries do need to decrease their dependence of gas, oil etc, which would make them politically weaker. Diplomacy is needed. We do not want separate them, but need to co-exist together.
Boris Jeltsin was a great leader, Putin is just like Stalin - idolized by his people, but cruel, bully and willing to sacrifice own nation to persuade his own dreams & goals.
