well said

From the International Herald Tribune (August 27th, 2008)

Resurgent Russia

Russia's blitzkrieg against Georgia has taken place 70 years after the
infamous Munich Agreement of September 29, 1938, when France, Britain and
Italy agreed to cede Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland to Nazi Germany in the
hope of establishing "peace in our time."

Like Hitler's Germany, Vladimir Putin's Russia is a post-imperial
authoritarian state that must expand. The Soviet empire's collapse in 1991
left the Russian population feeling humiliated; economic collapse in the
early 1990s only compounded their demoralization. As in Germany, Russians
blamed democracy for their collapse and humiliation. And, as in Germany, a
strongman promising greatness and glory seized power, dismantled
democracy, and created an authoritarian, hyper-nationalist regime with a
personality cult based on promises to re-establish imperial greatness.

The war against Geor gia is not the first instance of Russia's
aggressiveness vis-à-vis its former colonies. Estonia was the target of a
cyberwar; Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and the Czech Republic have
been subjected to energy cut-offs; Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine have been
punished by trade sanctions.

These states, like all of Russia's non-Russian neighbors, know that the
war in Georgia is really about them.

The Munich Agreement is considered a classic example of the perils of
appeasement. Had the democracies said no then, it's possible that World
War II could have been averted. At some point - and that point surely
arrived with Russia's invasion of Georgia - the West must learn to say no
to Russia. Expelling Russia from the G-8 would be symbolically nice, but
Putin would respond with a laugh. Only an "anti-Munich" would say no in a
meaningful fashion: Admit Ukraine and Georgia into NATO's Membership
Action Plan - immediately. P utin will glare in response; he will threaten
retaliation - and then, like all loud-mouthed dictators, he will
acquiesce.

Alexander J. Motyl Newark, New Jersey Professor of political science,
Rutgers University