The area between the Black Sea and the Caspian is beautiful, fertile, mountainous-and much fought over, most recently in August 2008 when Russia and Georgia went to war. This was no surprise: tension over the Russian-backed enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia had been high for months. Yet, as Thomas de Waal notes, all wars in the Caucasus are about the past as well as the present. To understand the region, one must know its history.
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机译：黑海和里海之间的地区美丽，肥沃，多山，并且经过了多次争夺，最近一次是在2008年8月俄罗斯和格鲁吉亚交战时。这不足为奇：俄罗斯支持的阿布哈兹和南奥塞梯飞地的紧张局势持续了数月之久。然而，正如托马斯·德瓦尔（Thomas de Waal）所指出的那样，高加索地区的所有战争都是关于过去和现在的。要了解该地区，必须了解其历史。
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