Georgia is a Eurasian country located in the south Caucasus, abutting the Black Sea, Turkey, and Russia. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Georgia has been a point of geopolitical contention between the Euro-Atlantic community and the Russian Federation. Georgians, on the whole, favor accession to the West, and Russia has interfered with this process using a number of tactics against Georgia. Russia and Georgia share a long and tumultuous history, and Russian influence remains ever-present in Georgian culture and politics. Georgians rate freedom highly and see their cultural values as complementary to Western norms. However, as a small country with a tumultuous history of invasion and occupation by its neighbors, Georgian views on war necessarily place greater emphasis on individual acts of valor ...