I feel sure that a debate is going on between the hawks and doves in the Kremlin. I am confident of that because such debates always do exist. There must be equally patriotic Russians, in senior official positions, who see the Georgian campaign as part of Vladimir Putin's restoration of Russian self-respect or as dangerous adventurism. In times of crisis, decision-makers inevitably divide into hawks, regarded by critics as “reckless warmongers”, and doves, regarded as “cowardly appeasers”.
Such divisions exist in the EU and in the US. In Russia, there is no doubt that the hawks are in the ascendant. The leading hawk is Mr Putin, the Prime Minister. One should remember that all politics is ultimately domestic. Mr Putin wants to impress Russia's neighbours with its power and armed might. But he also wants to impress the electorate.
The hawkish leaders refuse to accept Russia's humiliation at the time of the break-up of the Soviet Union. Their policy is popular with Russian public opinion. This naturally strikes fear into former Soviet countries, such as Ukraine or Georgia. No one now will lightly challenge Russian power; the Russian people like that.
We do not know who the doves in the Kremlin may be, although President Medvedev uses more moderate language than Mr Putin.
So far, the hawks have been winning the argument. The Russian people feel that they have been treated with disrespect for too long. Their military action in Georgia has been a rapid and decisive victory. The Georgian President, Mikheil Saakashvili, never popular in Russia, has been taught a sharp lesson in the realities of military power.
Nevertheless, the doves in the Kremlin also have strong arguments. Russia is a major nuclear power, comparable with the US. Russia may be the only nuclear power with the capacity to obliterate the US. Yet this would lead to the total destruction of Russia itself. That does, however, mean that Russia understands the reality of the situation.
The Russians have a sophisticated knowledge of their own vulnerability to nuclear attack. Like the Americans, they know that they cannot afford to go to war with the other nuclear superpower. This was established over 40 years of the Cold War. A certain level of nuclear capacity actually limits a major power's freedom of action.
In the time of Russia's greatest strength in the mid-20th century, between victory in Europe in 1945 and the death of Stalin in 1953, Russia still had a powerful Marxist-Leninist ideology that attracted support around the world and even conquered China.
Stalin believed Marxism-Leninism to be a scientific explanation of history that was bound to prevail against “capitalist imperialism”. He devoted substantial resources to promoting international revolution. Even his more moderate successor, Nikita Khrushchev, warned the West that “we will bury you”.
Russia is no longer a Marxist-Leninist society, although there is some popular nostalgia for the old days. Socialist idealists of the Third World no longer look to Russia as a model society, or even an attractive one. Marxism-Leninism had a strong appeal to political militants. That no longer exists. For better or worse, Russia is now just another capitalist country, and not a particularly efficient one.
The price that Russia is paying for the invasion of Georgia is increased isolation. The major regional powers of the modern world are the US, China, the EU, Russia, India and Japan. Since the Georgian invasion, Russia has had strained relations with the US and Europe, and no major friends. Russia is a large Asian power, stretching to the Pacific Ocean, but the three most important Asian powers, China, India and Japan, do not have close or trusting relations with it.
Of the six world powers, or groups of powers, Russia is seen as the least reliable, the least friendly. President Franklin Roosevelt felt that the US in the 1930s had become alienated from the South American countries; to correct that, he established the “good neighbour policy”. Russia is increasingly isolated from its “near abroad”. To Georgians, Ukrainians or citizens of the Baltic states, Mr Putin's Russia appears to be following a “bad neighbour policy”. For the Russian voter, Putinism may appear to be reasserting Russia's position in the world; to its neighbours, Russia is now an ugly threat.
The West, particularly the US and Europe, has tried to prevent Russia's isolation by inviting the Russians to come into the tent. This policy was not consistently pursued; there are still Western anxieties from the Cold War, just as there are similar Russian anxieties. But the general policy was clear and was symbolised by inviting Russia to join G8 meetings.
Russia has essential interests in common with the West. Global trade, a stable European market for oil and gas, resistance to Islamic terrorism, avoidance of military conflict, investment in modernisation. It was hoped that Russia and the West could build on these interests to cement good relations and strengthen the global economy.
The first European reactions to the invasion of Georgia showed that Europe hoped to protect this co-operative policy. Had Russia limited the Georgian operation to the protection of South Ossetian refugees, but kept troops out of Georgia proper, a co-operative policy might have been maintained. Instead, there has been broad Russian aggression against Georgian territory.
The delay in the ceasefire and the extension of the invasion far beyond the boundary of South Ossetia has created a very different climate, made worse by threats to target nuclear weapons against Poland and, it appears, Ukraine as well.
In a world of global trade, Russia cannot afford to be isolated. No doubt the Kremlin hawks are riding high now. Yet as Sir Robert Walpole said of a mid 18th-century war: “They now ring the bells, but they will soon wring their hands.”
William Rees-Mogg