Abstract

On 9 August 2008, Georgia proclaimed the state of war. In the north of the country, the capital city of South Ossetia was set aflame after days of fighting. Willing to “enforce peace”, the Russian fighter jets bombed Georgian military bases and towns. Meanwhile, Abkhazia launched a military operation to recover the Georgian-controlled part of its territory. On 12 August, France successfully brokered a peace plan which entails future international talks on security and stability in the region. The future work of the mediators will be laborious considered the divergences between the sides’ positions but extremely useful as a spiral of security threats seems to be at the origin of this conflict. The present analysis does not review the details of the current conflict. It rather tries to give a quick outline of the multi-faceted background to the conflict at every level (local, regional, and international).