Russia's war in Georgia is about more than just punishing Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia's pro-American President, whose doomed military incursion into South Ossetia 10 days ago caused the most serious crisis between Russia and the West since the Cold War.

The objectives of Russia's Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, are much bigger: to create a new global order in which the US and Russia are equal partners again. Putin has frequently lamented the demise of the Soviet Union. He has described it as the greatest geo-political catastrophe of the 20th century. For Putin, the 1990s under Boris Yeltsin was a period of national humiliation in which a weakened Russia was forced to accept Western economic help and which saw former members of the Warsaw Pact embrace Nato, the West's military club.

Russia's objectives extend far beyond Georgia; to create a new global order in which the US and Russia are equal partners aga...