As someone with experience in dealing with the Soviet military (I planned and executed a brilliant tactical maneuver to avoid the draft. Twice! ) I feel an urge to contribute my forty-seven kopecks to the discussion of the present Caucasus predicament:
1) Russian officers are drunk, slow, lazy thieves and are no match for any Western professionals. Their relative success is due purely to Georgian military incompetence, like the failure to block the roads and organize tank ambushes in the mountainous terrain perfectly suited for such operations. Even so, the Georgians managed to down several Russian aircraft and that should present a clear picture of the pathetic condition of the Russian air force.
2) The current Kremlin dwarfs (whichever one is really in charge) are no Hitlers or Stalins, but paper pushers who won the lottery and who, most likely, will not risk a real military confrontation with the West. They will however continue probing to sense weaknesses and to search for small victorious engagements to entertain the revenge hungry masses.
3) The whole thing is not entirely bad for us (aside from the human toll, naturally): the hated cop becomes popular when the local drunk returns to the village and starts smashing things.