Law Commons^™

Plucky Little Russia: Misreading The Georgian War Through The Distorting Lens Of Aggression, Timothy W. Waters

Articles by Maurer Faculty

One might expect massed armor crossing an international frontier to constitute the paradigmatic example of aggression — a case perfectly fit to analyze with the rules of jus ad bellum — and in the first flush and shock of the Georgian War in 2008, this is exactly how Western leaders described Russia’s actions. Yet that August, a constellation of circumstances combined to produce an anomalous outcome: an international war without any aggressor or any wrongful violation of territorial integrity. In theory — in doctrine — this is not supposed to happen.

The key to this puzzle is the special regime …