In August of 2008 Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili launched attacks into the breakaway province of South Ossetia, hoping to restore it to full Georgian control while most of the world's attention was focused on the Olympic games. Instead, Russian forces swiftly counter-attacked and over the course of several days of intense fighting threw Geogian forces out of South Ossetia and the neighboring breakaway province of Abkhazia and then launching their own attacks into Georgia proper. By the time of the cease-fire, Russian forces were in control of the main Black Sea port of Poti as well as severing the primary Georgian east-west highway at Gori. The main Georgian force had thrown together a last ditch defensive line to protect the capital Tbilisi, but chances of success against a Russian push seemed unlikely. With the victory, Russia got to give Georgia a black eye, indefinitely delay the latter's entry into NATO, trash a good chunk of Georgian military equipment, take 2 new grateful provinces under their wing, and show the West that Russia had gotten out of its sad-sack 90s existence.
So, my question is what if Russia decided to gamble a bit and keep pushing for a bit longer and settled for nothing less than a total occupation of Georgia and overthrow of President Saakashvili in favor of someone more in step with Moscow? I'm not talking annexation, simply an exercise in 'put your man in the capital', maybe keeping Russian peacekeepers in place to help keep order against resistance to the new regime.
So, my question is what if Russia decided to gamble a bit and keep pushing for a bit longer and settled for nothing less than a total occupation of Georgia and overthrow of President Saakashvili in favor of someone more in step with Moscow? I'm not talking annexation, simply an exercise in 'put your man in the capital', maybe keeping Russian peacekeepers in place to help keep order against resistance to the new regime.