One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other

Jon Chait and Matt Yglesias are in a bit of an argument over the Georgia/Russia war. I have nothing of substance to add. But I found this to be curious in Jon’s post:

…we can make a symbolic stand of unity with a democratic, pro-Western state that has been attacked by an autocratic aggressor.

I’m not sure if Jon means it like this, and if not I apologize preemptively, but I’ve noticed this sort of "Democratic Georgia vs Autocratic Russia" formulation occurring with some frequency. To the degree it’s meant to actually describe a motivation for the conflict, the democracy/autocracy point is a category error. The Russian invasion of Georgia has absolutely nothing to do with a conflict over methods of political organization. I admit to a rather deep ignorance over Georgia/Russia issues, but the conflict is rather obviously over coincentric spheres of influence — Georgia claims South Ossetia; Russia claims protectorate status over South Ossetia and, in a nontrivial way, also claims Georgia. These claims have deep historical roots and would hold even if Georgia subscribed to the Juche ideology of North Korea and Russia became an Islamic Emirate. To graft an ideological component to the current conflict is to guarantee misunderstanding it — or, more cynically, to try to manipulatively rope the U.S. into it.