"Azerbaijan is arming to the teeth. Armenia is growing increasingly disillusioned with Russia, its main protector. And the potential for armed conflict in the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region appears higher than it has been in years."

Billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, whose party won last week's parliamentary elections in Georgia, will forge a foreign policy based on pragmatism, not ideology, says RFE/RL's Elizabeth Fuller.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is facing the question of finding a middle ground between confrontation and capitulation with Russia.

Leslie H. Gelb comments, "The president's decision to send Georgian troops to Afghanistan will infuriate Moscow -- and reveals his lack of appreciation for exactly what it takes to accomplish big priorities."

One year after its war with Russia, Georgia is dispirited and unsure of its future. Has the United States staked too much on this small, fractured country in the Caucasus?

Veteran Eurasia expert Steven Pifer says Vice President Joseph Biden's trip to Ukraine and Georgia was meant to balance President Barack Obama's Moscow summit earlier in the month, but in both countries, Biden had to convey tough messages.

Robert E. Hunter, who was U.S. ambassador to NATO during the Clinton administration, says he does not expect NATO foreign ministers to enlarge the alliance to include Georgia or Ukraine at the next meeting in December.

The August war over South Ossetia has rekindled a superpower rivalry and showed the West that Moscow no longer heeds multilateral institutions.

Michelle Smith and Charles D. Ferguson write on the U.S. role in the conflict between Russia and Georgia.

The war between Russia and Georgia has complicated Western efforts to pressure Iran over its nuclear program, analysts say.

Georgian Vice Prime Minister Georgi Baramidze says Western support is vital for sustaining his country's economy and democracy after the loss of two separatist areas in a war with Russia.

Robert E. Hunter, a former U.S. Ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, says Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili miscalculated by sending troops into South Ossetia in mid-August, but in the end, "Russia is the loser here."

F. Stephen Larrabee, an expert on NATO and Eastern Europe, says Russia's invasion of Georgia was an effort to limit "Western influence into the former Soviet space."

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), advisers to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign, make recommendations for U.S. policy toward Russia and Georgia. In an op-ed, Graham and Lieberman say the United States and Europe should work to prevent Russia from "achieving its strategic objectives in Georgia."

As tensions between Russia and the West mount over the military conflict in Georgia, some analysts worry about the collapse of arms control agreements.

Given the tarnished record of George W. Bush’s “freedom agenda,” the idea of promoting democracy throughout the world is losing traction with both Democrats and Republicans, write James Goldgeier and Derek Chollet.

This video report gives a look into the breakaway province of Abkhazia.