Moral grounds alone would be enough reason for supporting it against Russian aggression. But on top of that is a vital Western interest. The biggest threat Russia poses to Europe is the Kremlin’s monopoly on energy export routes to the West from the former Soviet Union. The one breach in that is the oil and gas pipeline that leads from energy-rich Azerbaijan to Turkey, across Georgia. If Georgia falls, Europe’s hopes of energy independence from Russia fall too. Yet the West is both divided and distracted. America will be furious if reports turn out to be true that Russian warplanes bombed an airfield where Pentagon military advisers are based. But a lame-duck president is not going to risk World War Three for Georgia. In Europe, Georgia’s allies are mostly small ex-communist states such as Lithuania; heavily outnumbered by those such as Germany that prize their relations with Russia, seemingly, above all else. It seems Russia is ready to hit back hard, in the hope of squashing the West’s pestilential protégé. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article4488503.ece