Georgia is important. But what it tells us about global politics is far more so

The resurgence of Russia might worry the west, but China, the new real world superpower, can afford to be indifferent

In the anarchic world we politely term international relations, there was little surprising or unusual about the Russian aggressions into South Ossetia and Abkhazia. A great power was in a fierce quarrel with a small neighbour about that most commonplace cause of war - who should be boss when mixed ethnic groups claim the same lands and straddle international borders. Eventually the larger nation savagely spanked the smaller one, chiefly to impose its own solution on the problem but partly also to remind onlookers of that age-old truth: "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must". Big boys still rule.

Yet if there are no surprises, there certainly are many intriguing implications. As diplomatic historians well know, a relatively small incident in foreign affairs can have an importance well beyond the region in which the clash takes place - because of the responses of the larger powers, because it reveals the strengths and weaknesses of the available international machinery, and because it reminds us of the political realities and priorities of the age. Yet crises that seemed serious at the time - say, the Anglo-French confrontation over Fashoda in 1898 - have faded into the dustiest textbooks. A somewhat later crisis, such as Munich in 1938, is continually thrown up as a "lesson" for our present age.

More often than not, a sudden confrontation can catch a great power in a state of some confusion. It would be fascinating, for instance, to know how the Chinese politburo is regarding the events in Ossetia. At present, clearly, its chief concern is the Olympics, and there must surely be irritation with both Georgia and Russia for pushing their quarrel into open shooting now. There must also be concern about revived Russian assertiveness and nationalism - although there is no fear in Beijing, for the Chinese know the canny Putin wouldn't push things against them: China is strong, and doesn't mind taking losses, so don't mess with it. More upsetting, Russia has breached that clause of the UN charter China holds most important of all: no interference in the internal affairs of a member nation.

On the other hand, the Han Chinese cannot but like the idea of dissident ethnic minorities along a troublesome border being firmly spanked. Georgia's fate is not a matter of direct concern to Beijing. And Putin's roughing of Mikheil Saakashvili's government is a blow to American prestige and influence in Asia, always a congenial thought to China. So, while never, ever trusting the Russians, China can see that the Ossetian mess is nothing to get upset about.

This is certainly not the feeling in Nato and the EU, or in the major capitals of Europe. Here, above all in France and Germany (Gordon Brown seems beset by his own regional difficulties, in Scotland), there is concern that Russian military actions and political toughness portend a fading away of the post-1991 "new European order" - that it is a sort of latter-day Rhineland crisis of 1936, heralding the end of Versailles treaty Europe. Friendship with Russia cannot wear the bullying and blackmail of western companies like BP, the attempted intimidation of Russian dissidents in the west, the re-entry of the KGB into foreign countries - in sum, the plain fact that Russia is not "normal". It is not Poland, it is not Hungary; it never knew the Enlightenment.

And it is scary in other ways. First, Russia is terrifying to all those east European states that sought eagerly to flee the bear's grasp at the first opportunity following 1989 and 1991: to states, therefore, to whom Europe extended not only the economic and cultural ties of the EU but the security ties of Nato, with all its frightening implications. Right now, Georgia is not a Nato member, despite the Bush administration's urgings. This must be a cause for massive, nervous relief in Brussels and Washington. But what if a border dispute arises between Estonia (now in Nato) and Russia? Are the Portuguese and Danish armies prepared to march east? Are the Germans? Secondly, how will western and central Europe handle its heavy dependence on Russian natural gas, and its awful capacity for being blackmailed by Moscow? Things have come a long way since the wall crashed down in November 1989.

As for the US, the possible implications of the last week are many and serious. Consider the challenge facing Washington: how on earth to make a coherent policy in response to a distant, fast-exploding ethno-linguistic conflict, contested borders, a risk-prone Georgian ally, an increasingly assertive Russia with a new energy trump card, a confused EU and a paralysed security council? All at a time when other areas of the world have sucked in US military resources, as if its own politicians were not already preoccupied enough by the nonsenses of presidential campaigning. We don't have the big stick. Moscow does, at least in this area of the world. You can only push western influence so far eastwards into Eurasia. Napoleon learned that, Hitler learned that: George Bush's time has come.

This brings us to the larger geopolitical meaning of the Georgian scrap - namely, the measure of US power in today's fast-changing world. It could be better. It has been brought lower during the past eight years by inconsiderate and sometimes arrogant diplomacy, by an obsession with "the war on terror" and reckless fiscal policies. The post-1991 decade of the US's position as unchallenged number one - in Charles Krauthammer's memorable phrase, "the unipolar moment" - is over. To later historians, the pace of this shift will seem astounding. In the early 1990s, the elder George Bush, James Baker and other foreign policy veterans were wondering how to prevent Russia collapsing. Now the concern is about excessive Russian power.

To other scholars, the Caucasian struggles may appear as a storm in a teacup. The real challenge to the US in the future - and perhaps to the west more generally - is the steady rise of Asia and, in particular, China. Putin's muscle-flexing against pesky small neighbours is a mischievous distraction.

At the end of the day (but when is that?), it is probably Putin's hard-knuckled Russia that will be the loser. He may look tough and confident now, but his deck of cards is not so strong for the future. His strength rests on two supports: energy supplies and Russian nationalism. Those oil and natural-gas resources may evaporate sooner than he thinks. And Russian nationalism provokes enormous fear, enmity and resistance. Around the vast, open frontiers of the present Russian republic, and among the 100 ethnic minorities within the borders, no one loves the Russians. That has to be a geopolitical drag.

So the Ossetian scrap is important, though it should not be exaggerated out of proportion. But it tells us a lot about our present, delicate, international system of states. We have interesting times ahead.

Paul Kennedy is Dilworth professor of history and director of international security studies at Yale University. He is the author/editor of 19 books, including The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers

paul.kennedy@yale.edu