VIRGINIA BEACH, Va.

RUSSIA’S INVASION of Georgia has politicians and pundits asking aloud if a new Cold War is upon us. Is Georgia just the first Russian foot to fall in a march across the old Soviet stomping grounds? Does Russian dictator Vladimir Putin have his sights set (literally) on Ukraine next? Maybe the Baltic states, or even Poland?

On the contrary, whatever short-term gains the Russians may have realized in Georgia, they are not likely to be consolidated in the long term.

The first obstacle to revived Russian superpower status is geopolitical. The old days of the Soviet Union and its satellites are over. Present-day Russia is confronted in the west by an expanding NATO and in the east by an ascendant China. The Soviet Union enjoyed a considerable buffer between itself and the West. At the height of the Cold War, St. Petersburg, Russia’s second largest city, was 1,200 miles from the nearest NATO alliance member. Today St. Petersburg is barely 60 miles from a NATO country, Estonia.

The Georgian incursion was in part meant to remind the former Soviet republics and satellites that Russia was still the dominant power in the region. That may be true, but the show of force did not have the effect that the Kremlin had hoped. Leaders from the Baltic states, Ukraine and Poland traveled to Georgia in a show of support. More significantly, Poland dropped its previous conditions for hosting a U.S. anti-ballistic-missile site and signed a cooperative agreement before the Russians had even finished mopping up. That last development apparently touched a nerve. Russian Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn said the deal to put a U.S. missile-defense battery in Poland “cannot go unpunished,” adding that Poland put itself at risk of attack.

General Nogovitsyn would not find Poland as soft a target as Georgia, however. While Georgia shares a long border with Russia, Poland does not, the tiny, noncontiguous Russian province of Kaliningrad excepted. More importantly, Georgia is geographically isolated from the West. Poland is not. The U.S. has about 70,000 troops based in Germany, Poland’s immediate neighbor to the west. And these are not untested Georgian reservists. They are well-trained and equipped American soldiers, many battle-hardened from one or more tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. While NATO might have been hard pressed to muster a military response to the Georgian incursion, the Russians would be just as hard pressed to replicate its military success in Poland.

The second obstacle to long-term Russian ambition is perhaps even more profound. Russia’s demographics are moribund. Literally, it is a dying country. Russia has a fertility rate of 1.4 births per woman. Mere replacement requires 2.1. Philip Stephens, of the Financial Times, reports that the Russian population of 140 million will decline by 10 million over the next decade. By 2020, Russia will find it difficult to maintain its current military troop levels even through aggressive conscription.

The current life expectancy for males is about 61 years. Russia also has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. And while most of its federal regional populations are shrinking, the region with the largest population growth (1.79 percent) is Chechnya. That can’t be good.

The Russian government is aware of its demographic problems. In the last few years it has taken steps to improve health and reduce poverty, but fertility is like a large ship with a small rudder. Large and rapid changes are simply not possible. Short of radical steps like banning abortion or inviting mass immigration — neither of which the Russian people would likely accept — Russia’s demographic future is essentially set. In good Soviet fashion, most of the recently reported gains have been made by government manipulation of statistics rather than by actually improving conditions.

It all suggests a grim future for Russia. Even its considerable oil and natural-gas profits, concentrated as they are in the hands of a few wealthy oligarchs, cannot prevent Russia from slipping further from prominence on the world stage.

It may be cold comfort to Georgia today, but not too long from now, the Russian bear will be toothless.

Robert D. Stacey is a professor of political science at Regent University, in Virginia Beach, Va.