David Kakabadze of RFE/RL has a piece up commenting on Russia’s successful campaign to eliminate most outside participants (the OSCE) from the conflict resolution process in the Caucases – and argues that the West should really stop pretending to be “so surprised” by Russia’s foreign policy decisions.

That, of course, seems highly unlikely. Less than five months after the August war, the West is gradually returning to business as usual with Moscow. In November, the EU decided to resume talks on a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with Russia. NATO, after refusing to offer membership road maps to Georgia and Ukraine earlier this month, last week resumed high-level meeting with Moscow after a four-month hiatus in response to the war. That informal meeting between NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Moscow’s NATO Ambassador Dmitry Rogozin was intended to explore ways of restarting formal contacts.

In short, Russia’s military muscle-flexing in August seems to be paying off, as David Smith, director of the Georgian Security Analysis Center, argues in “Jane’s Defense Weekly.” Nikolas Busse wrote in “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” that the August war seems to have had little downside for the tandem of Prime Minister Putin and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. (…)