Whenever one country annexes part of another as Russia did with Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014, many observers immediately ask whether such moves presage the opening of a new era in which annexations will become more common. Now although Moscow hasn’t yet annexed South Ossetia, some are already asking about the future of Abkhazia.

In most cases, it becomes obvious that any annexation does not lead immediately to more but rather delays any further moves in that direction not only because conditions in other potential candidates for absorption are different but also because the international community makes it clear that it opposes any such actions.

Now, it appears that Moscow is close to annexing South Ossetia, a territory Russian forces carved out of Georgia in 2008, with both the Russian and South Ossetian sides apparently on track to take this step, long rumored because South Ossetia has so few attributes of an independent state, sometime in the near future (jamestown.org/south-ossetia-and-russia-make-further-steps-toward-annexation/).

Georgia would certainly be infuriated if Moscow and Tskhinvali take that........

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