Kagan on Georgia and Russia: the 19th Century Is Back

As Russian troops enter Georgia proper, Putin's mask slips and Robert Kagan points this out in new article in the WaPo:

Historians will come to view Aug. 8, 2008, as a turning point no less significant than Nov. 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell. Russia's attack on sovereign Georgian territory marked the official return of history, indeed to an almost 19th-century style of great-power competition, complete with virulent nationalisms, battles for resources, struggles over spheres of influence and territory, and even -- though it shocks our 21st-century sensibilities -- the use of military power to obtain geopolitical objectives. Yes, we will continue to have globalization, economic interdependence, the European Union and other efforts to build a more perfect international order. But these will compete with and at times be overwhelmed by the harsh realities of international life that have endured since time immemorial.

In some ways, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Fukuyama's "end of history" thesis has long been exploded.