ABSTRACT
Differing geopolitical and geo-economic advantages and constraints on Georgia's state and nation building, the Russo-Georgia war of August 2008 suggests that the most serious constraint on Georgia's development as a sovereign, stable and democratizing state is Russian neo-imperialism. The situation in 1918-21, when the Democratic Republic of Georgia (DRG) was trying to defend its sovereignty in the midst of Russian civil war and international crisis, has many parallels with the current situation. Success in Georgia, inspired Russia to make kin-statism a more systematic instrument of its foreign policy. Communist expansionist ideology has been replaced by expansionist kin-statism. The concept of "responsibility to protect" (R2P) has been developed under United Nations (UN) auspices and is laid out in the 2001 Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. Viacheslav Kovalenko implied that Georgia might definitively lose both breakaway regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, unless it desisted from its efforts to join North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
