Russia is not easy to deal with but the Bush administration has not dealt with Russia at all sensibly.

It is perfectly obvious that Russia has launched a preemptive strike against Georgian membership of NATO, which America was promoting. America's bluff has been called. I think the problem is so often that American officials are overly academic. They have concepts and projects they want to implement, like spreading "democracy and the rule of law". But their mindset cannot fully engage with what is happening on the ground, or accept that the Russian point of view is not the same as theirs, but still has to be taken seriously because Russia is Georgia's neighbour. Because people believed Georgia ought to become an American military bastion, they forgot that Georgia as an American bastion is not a terribly practical idea, given the power and the thinking of the current regime in Moscow. As George Kennan said, Americans in foreign policy can sometimes be "moralistic in the demands placed on others, and self-righteous in the degree of rectitude they impute to themselves". After all, what made Georgia interesting to the United States as a place to implant "American values" was its importance as an energy transit country! The American policy that might have served Georgia better would have been to find a way to ensure that liberalising Georgia could be achieved without antagonising Russia. Instead, the Americans made Georgia more of a thorn in Russia's side through the prospect of NATO membership when they did not have any real will to protect Georgia in the event of a Russian attack. The western media often fails to appreciate that Russia is genuinely frightened by NATO expansion so close to its own borders, particularly if this involves the stationing of nuclear weapons.

In the end, the only way this problem is going to be solved is by bilateral negotiations between Moscow and Washington. If you are not prepared to go to war, and the USA is not, then you have to negotiate. And there is no point in threatening Russia with a loss of respect around the world because the EU, China and the United States are going to continue to do business with Russia whatever happens to Georgia. My worry is that Washington does not really know how to do this kind of diplomacy. There has been a combination of reproaches, inaction and empty threats, when what is required from Washington is some tough negotiating that will safeguard the independence of the former Soviet satellites and at the same time, normalise Russia's relations with them.