One year ago this week, war broke out between Russia and Georgia. Many international leaders, including Vladimir Putin, Russia’s former president and now prime minister, and George W. Bush, former US president, were in Beijing for the opening of the Olympic Games. The hostilities seemed to take them all by surprise.

Georgia’s hot-headed president, Mikheil Saakashvili, was widely blamed for ordering the first big assault, with an artillery barrage on Tskhinvali, capital of the secessionist province of South Ossetia, on the night of August 7.