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It will come as no surprise to know that British troops helped the US to train the Georgian army. Or that Britain is providing assistance to the US-Ethiopian puppet regime in Somalia, a regime notorious for torture and massacre.

On 4 April next year the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) will celebrate its 60th anniversary. It pretends to be a defensive military alliance – but the recent conflict between Georgia and Russia shows the true purpose of Nato and why the peace movement must oppose its existence.

The new Labour government is leading the West’s war of words against Russia in its dispute with Georgia.

What lies behind the conflict between Georgia and Russia? Dave Crouch explains why the Caucasus has become the new front for US imperialism.

The recent war in the Caucasus between Russia and Georgia has highlighted once again the complex question of national rights. National antagonisms and nationalism are often put forward as explanations for war. Nationality and nations are portrayed as age-old.

Now that the dust is beginning to settle, what are the long term consequences of the war between Russia and Georgia?

The occupation of Afghanistan has entered a new and deeper crisis. A rising number of sophisticated attacks on foreign troops, combined with a growing rebellion in Pakistan and Russia's crushing of Nato ally Georgia, have raised the prospect that the occupation is heading for defeat.

Internationally the war is a big blow for the US, at least in Central Europe and the Caucasus. It has suddenly shown that the influence and control of the sole superpower is limited. There are situations when the superpower cannot protect its client states such as Georgia.

Almond argues that the Western media has tried to portray Georgia’s president Mikheil Saakashvili as a modernising democrat.

In the Czech Republic, just as in most European countries, we have been watching television pictures of Georgia’s "brave" president Mikheil Saakashvili "defending his small country against imperial Russia".

British politicians love playing Winston Churchill. Tory leader David Cameron was at it last week when he flew to Georgia. According to the Guardian, Georgia’s president Mikheil Saakashvili invited him after he compared the situation there to "the appeasement of Hitler".

War has torn apart yet another region of the world in the last week, as Russia and Georgia clashed over South Ossetia, a breakaway province that lies in the Caucasus mountains between the two countries.

The recent fighting between Georgia and Russia has revealed splits in the Western ruling class over whether or not to turn up the heat on Russia.

George Bush arrived in Romania for a Nato summit this week backing applications from Ukraine and Georgia to join the US-led military alliance. The expansion of Nato to Russia’s borders has been key to the "new Cold War" between the US and Russia.

The US has hailed the resignation of the Lebanese government as part of a democratic wave sweeping the world. What they are calling the "cedar revolution"—modelled on the "orange revolution" in the Ukraine and the "rose revolution" in Georgia — is less a revolution and more a medium sized demonstration of the supporters of the opposition, which is mainly made up of right wing parties.

UPRISINGS have become a regular feature of the modern world. Twice in the last two months mass uprisings have toppled governments-in Bolivia and Georgia. Similar revolts have shaken every continent in the last five years.

In scenes not seen in the former Soviet states for a decade, tens of thousands of people poured onto the streets to topple a corrupt regime.

ASTONISHING TV pictures from the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, showed protesters storming the parliament building as popular anger with the regime exploded last week. The president, Edward Shevardnadze, was forced to scuttle away. The slogans of the uprising were directed against government corruption and ballot rigging.

GEORGIA IS a poor country with only four million inhabitants. But facing the Black Sea between Russia, Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan, it is of key strategic importance for any outside power trying to exercise influence over the whole region from the Middle East through to the Chinese border. Britain occupied the country briefly as part of its efforts to destroy the Russian Revolution in the aftermath of the First World War.

SOME 9,000 protesters demonstrated outside the US Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia, last Saturday. The school has been used by the US military to train brutal right wing death squads.