Forty years ago this week, the night sky above Prague began to rumble with the sound of transport aircraft. On distant frontiers, tanks lurched forward. The invasion of Czechoslovakia had begun.
Today, there are Russian tank columns on Georgian roads. Again, a small country lies prostrate before the military power of the Kremlin. Poland, in turn, is informed by a Russian general that by agreeing to station American missiles, it has made itself a nuclear target — perhaps no more than a brutal statement of the obvious.
But there are big differences between now and 1968. First, the Georgians fought back before being overwhelmed, something they will remember. Second, this is something less than total occupation. Anything may still happen, but this Russian action looks more like a punitive expedition.