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TBILISI, Georgia -- While the world's attention was focused on China and the athletic "wars" at the Olympic Games this summer, soldiers on the other side of the continent were fighting a real war. President Mikheil Saakashvili of the country of Georgia ordered his troops

The August 7 attack was successful. By the end of the day, Georgian troops were inside South Ossetia's capital, Tskhinvali.

Georgia's victory didn't last long, though. The attack on the tiny region outraged neighbor Russia, which claimed that the Georgians were massacring people in South Ossetia. What happened next pushed the world back decades toward a time of tense East-West relations known as the Cold War.

ENTER THE RUSSIANS

In a smashing show of force, Russian tanks, warplanes, and soldiers poured across the border into Georgia. They captured South Ossetia the next day. The Russian troops didn't stop there. They kept going into central Georgia and began bombing the city of Gori. On the Black Sea, a Russian fleet attacked the Georgian navy.

U.S. President George W. Bush learned of the Russian invasion while watching the opening ceremonies at the Olympic Games. He leaned over to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who was sitting a couple of seats away, to express the United States' displeasure with Russia's decision to invade.

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The Russians defended their actions to Bush and to the world. The South Ossetians are related to Ossetians living in North Ossetia, a region inside Russia, and they have long wanted to join with North Ossetia. Russia has even granted Russian citizenship to South Ossetians. When the Georgian army invaded, the Ossetians complained that Georgians looted businesses and killed and tortured innocent people. Russian officials said the Georgians killed 133 people before the Russian army arrived. They argued that Russia had to invade Georgia to protect the people of South Ossetia.

U.S. and European leaders did not believe that argument. Bush warned Russia that it had attacked a sovereign nation when it attacked Georgia.

A week after the war began, both sides signed a formal peace deal. The Russian troops did not withdraw, though. They stayed in Georgia, destroying Georgian military equipment. Russia's forces didn't pull out until August 26. Russia's parliament formally recognized South Ossetia as an independent nation the same day. "We are not afraid of anything, including the prospect of [another] Cold War," Russian President Medvedev said.

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A NEW COLD WAR?

Justified or not, Russia's actions chilled its relations with Europe and the United States. The United States only increased those tensions when U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed an agreement a few days later to put U.S. defensive missiles in Poland. In Russia's eyes, U.S. missiles so close to its border would pose a direct threat to Russian security.

Russia is suspicious of U.S. actions in Georgia. Georgia is an unofficial ally of the United States. Saakashvili once lived in the United States and considers Bush a friend. He also wants Georgia to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a military alliance between Europe and the United States. After Russian troops pulled out of Georgia, Putin suggested to CNN that "someone in the United States" might have provoked the conflict to help one of the candidates for U.S. president. The U.S. government denied the claim, and Saakashvili called it ridiculous, saying Putin might as well have claimed space aliens were involved.

The friendship between Georgia and the West particularly upsets Russia because Georgia used to be part of the Soviet Union, which Russia dominated. The Soviet Union was a huge communist nation that included Russia and 14 other republics. The Soviet Union's most famous leader, Joseph Stalin, was a Georgian (see Time Trip).

The Cold War was the worldwide struggle between the Soviet Union and the West, led by the United States, from 1947 to 1990. It was a time of rivalry, tension, and a nuclear arms race. No one on either side wants that to happen again.

Russians living in the United States are divided over the conflict. Russian news shows portray Russia as a liberator of South Ossetia and Georgia as a tyrant. "I think Russia should have stepped in," Victoria, a teen who emigrated from Russia to New York, told Current Events student reporter Razghiem Golden. Warren Aitenchuck, 55, a Russian in New York, said the Russians were "being bullies. I think they have made great strides, but by them doing this, I think it's going to set them back."

TIME TRIP

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Georgia's Famous Dictator: Stalin

Joseph Stalin is a hero to many Georgians, even today. He was born Iosif Dzhugashvili in 1879 in the city of Gori. His father was a drunk who beat his wife and child, biographers say. Young Stalin took the severe beatings without shedding a tear. The boy wanted to prove that he was as tough and heartless as his father.

As a young man, he joined a Georgian group advocating a communist revolution. He took the name Stalin, from Russian words meaning "man of steel."

Stalin's friendship with Vladimir Lenin, the reader of the Russian communist movement, put him near the forefront of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution that brought the communists to power. When Lenin died in 1724, Stalin eliminated his political rivals, gaining absolute control of the Soviet Union by 1928. Stalin was a ruthless dictator responsible for the imprisonment and death of millions of people. Still, he gained a reputation as a great war reader, guiding the Soviet Union to victory over Germany in World War II.

Stalin had villages and towns named after him and gave himself titles such as "Father of Nations" and "Gardener of Human Happiness." He died in 1953.

Get Talking

Ask students: The Russia-Georgia war had its roots in ethnic divisions inside Georgia. What are ethnic divisions and how might they lead to conflict? What other ethnic conflicts in the world have you heard about?

Background

* Joseph Stalin was a Georgian, but he still brutalized his homeland. He appointed another Georgian, Lavrenty Beria (1899-1953), as communist head of Georgia, and Beria ordered the executions of 5,000 people for not sufficiently supporting Soviet rule. Farmers were forced to join large collective farms. Those who refused faced imprisonment or execution.

* When the iron rule of the Soviet Union began to dissolve in the late 1980s, Soviet authorities put down demonstrations for independence in Tbilisi. Beginning in 1991, however, the various republics of the Soviet Union one by one declared their independence. Georgia made its declaration on April 9, 1991.

* The new government of independent Georgia was riddled with corruption and gradually lost the people's support. In November 2003, the country was shaken by massive political demonstrations that eventually led to the resignation of Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze. In January 2004, Mikheil Saakashvili was elected president. He was reelected in 2008.

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Doing More

Georgia has a history and culture that go back to at least 2100 B.C. The region became part of a succession of empires: the empire of Alexander the Great, the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union. Have students research Georgia's history and draw a time line of important dates from 2100 B.C. to the present.