Let us never forget that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, that cold-eyed former KGB official, called the collapse of the Soviet Union, whose leaders killed millions of their own citizens, “the greatest geo-political catastrophe of the 20th Century.” That puts recent events into context.

Russia’s invasion of Georgia, and its effective annexation of two breakaway regions of that tiny land, is of course, profoundly disturbing. It signifies that Russia now feels emboldened again to act very aggressively against neighbors that stray too far from the Kremlin’s influence.

Whatever our rhetoric about this aggression, the fact is that there’s little on a short-term basis that the United States can do about it, unless we feel like starting World War III. To quote the philosopher Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., “Never tell somebody to go to hell unless you can send him there.” And we have also unfortunately given the Russian rulers a bit of a model for breakaway states by supporting Kosovo’s independence from Russia’s fellow Slav nation of Serbia.

The best we can hope for in the short term is that some worry about international public relations will lead Moscow to avoid demanding as much as it can (which is pretty much everything) from Georgia. As it is, the Moscow regime may well overthrow pro-Western Georgian President Mikheil Shaakashvili and turn Georgia back into a sort of semi-capitalist version of an old Soviet republic. Mr. Putin has long hated Mr. Shaakashvili for his irritatingly loud allegiance to the United States (on the very borders of Russia!), his desire that his country join NATO and his support of democracy and free markets, as opposed to Russia’s state capitalism.

One thing we can do, albeit over months, not days, is to help boost the defensive military capacities of the Baltic Republics, which are NATO allies, and Ukraine to make Moscow think long before trying to impose its will on them. As it is, Russia has already used its natural-gas supplies to try to blackmail Ukraine and has attacked Estonia and Georgia’s Internet systems because of theirdisinclination to display what Mr. Putin considers proper regard for what he sees as Russia’s rightful hegemony of former Soviet republics and its former satellites, such as Poland, beyond.

And Vladimir Putin’s enemies have a way of not living out the average life expectancy . . .

Yet again, the energy situation is at the heart of much of the rise, or revival, of dictatorships like Russia. The latter is loaded with oil and natural gas. It provides about 25 percent of Europe’s supply of the latter. This has given Moscow the wherewithal to resume its attempts to subjugate to varying degrees its neighbors and has made many in the West timid about taking any actions that might encourage Mr. Putin to slow or cut off the flow of energy.

Unless and until the United States and its allies get really serious about cutting back on fossil-fuel use, Mr. Putin will do very well.