Merci, Mme Moïsi

What has the Volgi been telling you? Does it sound better à la française?

The current crisis in the Caucasus does not mark the return of the Cold War, nor is it likely to mark the start of open warfare between Russia and the West; it is, more simply, the return of the traditional imperialism practiced by the Russian Empire more than a century ago.

China is, with the exception of Tibet, a satisfied and confident status-quo empire. Russia by contrast is a revisionist imperialist power, whose lack of self-confidence is returning to haunt the world.

The Volgi would note, however, that China's claims on Taiwan are at least as destabilizing in Asia as Russia's on the Baltic States are in Europe (not quite as big as Ukraine—as that'd move the Russian border up against Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania, states with recent and unpleasant experience of Russian rule)—and of far greater import to the global economy.