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Russia made serious miscalculations over the August 2008 war with Georgia, writes Professor Daniel W. Drezner for Foreign Policy.

Discussing a story about how Russia attempted, in the middle of that conflict, to force a global sell-off of bonds guaranteed by the US Federal Government he says - assuming the story to be true "for the sake of making life interesting" -  the failure of the plan demonstrated a huge strategic muiscalculation on the part of the Russian élite.

He writes "the fact that the Russians thought the Chinese would go along with ...[the sell off]... says a lot about the delusions Russian leaders had during the Russian-Georgian conflict. They really seem to have believed that China, other members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the rest of the Collective Security Treaty Organization would be perfectly cool with Russia recognizing the independence of two secessionist states -- just because it would be an affront to the U.S.A. Whoops."

(And it is certainly true that China's regime controlled media have been relatively friendly towards Georgia recently.)

He goes on to argue, in what he admits is a "provocative" claim, that the Georgian - Russian war "might have been the best thing that could have happened for the bilateral relationship [between Russia and the United States]".

Obviously those Georgians (and Russians) who lost relatives or homes in the conflict are unlikely to be as quick to see the upside but he goes on to argue that the war  "had a modest humbling effect on Russian ambitions. The commodity bubble - which had fuelled Russia's economic growth and self-confidence for the past decade - popped in the summer of 2008. The recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia abetted a capital outflow that had begun in reaction to the Russian government's heavy-handedness in picking winners and losers in the domestic economy. These trends, if nothing else, likely highlighted the opportunity costs of continued bellicosity to Russian elites and Russian policymakers."