DESPITE officially recognizing the territorial integrity of Georgia since it became independent with the collapse of the old Soviet Union in 1991, Russia has supported Abkhazian and South Ossetian rebels seeking to break away from Georgian rule. This stands in marked contrast to Moscow’s view of Kosovo’s secession from Serbia and indeed Chechnya’s would-be break-away from Russia.

Whatever the ugly realities on the ground — and it seemed last night that despite proclaiming a cease-fire, Russia had far from ended its military operations in Georgia — the plain fact is that Russia is clearly in breach of its very own principles, as applied by the Kremlin to Kosovo and Chechnya. This is not going to bother the Medvedev administration one tiny bit, of course. The 70,000 rebellious South Ossetians and the quarter of a million Abkhazians provide an excellent reason for Russia to maintain its influence on this part of its southern border by keeping the Georgian government in Tblisi unstable. The Kremlin’s need to sustain this hold on its neighbor has become the greater since that neighbor sought, with Washington’s active encouragement, to become a member of NATO. Despite its protests to the contrary and even its attempts to involve Russia as observers, NATO is now seen by Moscow as a clear and present danger to the security of its borders.

Just as US President George Bush’s Iraq invasion was supposed to be about the freedom of the Iraqi people rather than about its oil, so Russian protests that it is only protecting its citizens in the two rebel regions are complete hokum. The lesson is once again that whenever major powers start seeking to justify their actions on the basis of pure principle, the rest of the world should beware, because in truth those very principles are in danger. If Russia were serious about the need for South Ossetian or Abkhazian self-determination, then it would be going to the UN tomorrow to sign off on the self-determination of the Kosovars. It would also end its policy of repression in Chechnya and start talking to the rebels and consulting with the Chechen people as to what they really wanted.

By the same token the West, now so strenuous in its defense of Georgian unity, perhaps needs to re-explain its support for the breakaway of East Timor from Indonesia and the secession of Bosnia and Croatia from the former Yugoslavia, to say nothing of the active Washington-led encouragement for Kosovo’s independence.

There is in truth no moral high ground here for any state, merely a shifting pattern of realpolitik that seeks to justify whatever needs to be justified at any given moment. Unfortunately, the weak little people, who are caught up in the consequent web of conflict and contradictions, pay the price for this unprincipled posturing by powerful governments.

Georgia may have felt itself partitioned and been provoked into action against South Ossetian rebels, but how has the recent bloodshed and destruction been any substitute for reasoned and patient negotiation to settle its disputes?