President Bush has announced that the US will send humanitarian aid to Georgia aboard C-17 transport aircraft. Those transport aircraft aren't going to go in alone, as they will likely have fighter escorts and AWACS planes monitoring the Russians at every step.
There are good reasons why the US will not engage in a direct confrontation with the Russians - to avoid a war that could potentially set the whole world ablaze. The US continues to adhere to the same military doctrine from the Cold War that enabled the world to avoid a nuclear conflagration - avoid direct military conflict between Russian (Soviet) and US forces at all costs. Proxy wars are okay, but keep them from getting into direct entanglements.
That's why you're not going to see the US get into a direct war with the Russians. The stakes are simply astronomical should that come to pass.
The US has limited options, but let's be clear here - no matter how much the US provided military training and equipment to the Georgians, the Russians could overwhelm them with sheer numbers, which is exactly what they've done to this point.
This isn't like the US taking on the Russians directly. The Russians exploited the situation in South Ossetia to expand their power at the expense of one of our allies. It hits our prestige and influence in the region, but there are ways to restore the situation and to make Russia think twice.
One - grant membership to the Ukraine. Ukraine tells Russia to pound sand and vacate their base in Sevastopol. It would make the Russians think twice since they'd lose a key Black Sea port, and expose their flank.
Two - grant membership to Georgia. Use that as a means to demand Russia's exit and return status quo ante or else face NATO firepower.
It ups the stakes, but does so in a way that gives Russia an out before shooting starts between NATO/US forces and the Russians. Russia doesn't think much of NATO or Europe and probably think they will not lift a finger to help Georgia. Disabusing them of that thinking is crucial to regional stability of the sort that provides fertile ground for democracies. Russia doesn't like democracies on its borders since they're far more likely to look westward than towards Russia.
The moral relativists and leftists are quick to condemn the US role in this, but excuse the Russians. Funny how that happens (especially when the moral relativists are leftists).
Meanwhile, the Georgians continue to suffer at the hands of the Russians as villages are burned. Cease fire? What cease fire? Russian troops push deeper into Georgia, and appear more than willing and capable of cutting the country in half. If they're looking to engage in a ceasefire, then advancing away from South Ossetia is the wrong direction - they're pushing deeper into Georgia.
Once again, the facts show that Russia had every intention of causing a conflict to erupt in Georgia and use it as a pretext to eliminating a nascent democracy along its borders. You cannot prepare a military action such as the one currently undertaken by the Russians without significant preparations and planning. These moves were decided long ago by Putin and the Russian government.
The BBC plays winners and losers, even though the fighting isn't over, and the situation is still far from decided. However, I would tend to agree that the truth and facts are a loser in all this. The Russians have played the ethnic cleansing and genocide card from the earliest moments of the fighting, but they have steadfastly refused to allow anyone access to the region to see what they've done (or found). The BBC also claims that the Georgians fired indiscriminately on South Ossetia with rockets, which is plausible, but again, who fired first - the South Ossetians who provoked the Georgian response.
That BBC article also posits a few additional possibilities for how the West can thwart or undermine Russian objectives, including telling the Russians they lost their shot at joining the WTO or kick them out of the G-8.
UPDATE:
The first C-17s have landed in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, and there are now reports that the Russians are only minutes away from entering the city. Things could get very hot very quickly. I suspect that the Russians are moving quickly to establish a hold on the city before the US humanitarian aid can get going - since the aid comes in the form of US peacekeepers.
Or, will the Russians claim that the US aren't peacekeepers but a military operation to support their Georgian allies? That's what you can expect, but that is precisely what the Russians have done throughout this whole sorry episode.
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