For someone who claims Foreign Policy as a major strength, Senator John McCain's understanding of the situation in Russia seems to be extremely lacking.

In last night's debate, Senator McCain repeatedly referred to the Russia-Georgia war as an act of Russian aggression fueled by Russia's lust for Georgian oil. This is a simplistic and naive understanding of the conflict that is more fitting of a first-term governor than it is of a four-term Senator.

First, as a testament to the lack of media access in both Georgia and Russia, we don't know who fired the first salvo in this war, but this is largely semantics.

More importantly, this war is not some conflict started by a hunger for oil. In fact, Georgia has a whole of one major pipeline that runs through it - and it runs from the Caspian sea to Turkey, and not Eastern Europe, which is where the majority of Russia's oil customers lie. While there certainly is some competition between Georgian pipeline and Russian oil, the extent of its influence in the war is minimal. This war, rather, is the result of a long-term distrust of NATO expansion and the fear that the West will attempt to contain Russia once more.

It is little known and not widely reported that in 2001, Putin was openly talking about increased Russian participation in NATO. There was even talk of eventual Russian membership, which would make NATO a military alliance that stretched from Lisbon to Moscow. Yet, all that talk of strengthening ties stopped when NATO expanded into the former Soviet Republics on the Baltic Sea, despite promises by Bush to Putin that such expansion would not happen. These nations, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, had large Russian populations and historic ties to Russia; and, as a result of their proximity and extensive ties to Russia, Putin viewed such expansion as a threat to Russian interests

It is, then, unsuprising that the war between Russia and Georgia occurred after extensive talks by both Georgia and NATO about possible Georgian (and Ukranian) membership in NATO. As explained in the article:

One fact is clear: the Kremlin's troops would not be in South Ossetia today if Georgia were a loyal ally. Instead, Mr Saakashvili is paying the price for his pro-Western foreign policy and, in particular, his ambition to join Nato.

Two key events well beyond Georgia's borders have triggered Russia's fury. The first was Kosovo's declaration of independence in February and the new country's subsequent recognition by many Western states. This brought a public warning from Moscow that Kosovo's move to independence could set a precedent for Georgia's two breakaway regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The second was Nato's pledge at the Bucharest summit in April that membership of the Atlantic Alliance for both Georgia and Ukraine was not a matter of "if" but "when", although in deference to Russian objections, no timetable for entry was granted. This provoked Vladimir Putin, then still Russia's president, to promise more support for Georgia's breakaway regions. (The Daily Telegraph)

In short, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili gambled on his strong Western ties and overplayed his hand. Russia responded with a war and no Western power could lift a military finger to help. As a result, Russia became more powerful because of its show of force, and NATO was shown to be largely toothless and disjointed.

Yet, if we do as John McCain suggests and offer full and immediate Georgian membership into NATO, we will simply exacerbate the problem and cause the very Cold War that John McCain claims he wants to avoid. The messages from Russia are clear and have been clear since the 2004 NATO expansions - NATO must stay at its current limits. In order to deal with this new militaristic Russia, the US cannot pursue the same strategy as it did in the Cold War. We cannot promise Russia that we will not undermine their interests around its borders all the while forging extensive links between American interests and former Soviet states. We must stop supplying Putin and Dimitri Medvedev the political crutch of Anti-Americanism and make them face the political pinch that accompanies the global credit market crunch.

Finally, we must stop using the naive and belligerent language of John McCain and recognize that our alliance against Russia is not a league of democracies - not when we're opening courting near dictators like Alyaksandr Lukashenka in Belarus. To avert this Cold War, the United States must recognize obvious Russian fears and diffuse tense situations by re-integrating Russia into the global market and Western political system, rather than provoking them with containment-based actions - like building a National Missile defense system in Poland.

The US must also look to strengthen and stabilize the fluid political system in countries like the Ukraine* to give Putin less of a chance to exert his influence and justify his war. Russia will be a difficult subject matter to tackle for the next president, but what is obvious is that a Cold War will not be averted by the expansionist talk and us-vs-them mentality employed by John McCain - a supposed foreign policy expert that has did little last night save show how little he understands about Russia, its interests and its history.

*The two presidential candidates in the next Ukraine elections have approval ratings of 5% and 22.5%, respectively. That's like an election between Post-watergate Nixon and 2008 Bush.