The August war in Georgia destroyed any illusions that, nearly 20 years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, we had restructured the European security system to make the continent whole, free and secure. The crux of the problem lies with the failure to ensure that Russia is fully invested and integrated into that system. Without that, Russia's neighbors will never feel secure. Although we had not given Georgia formal security guarantees, the failure to prevent the Georgia war devalued NATO and broader U.S. credibility and global security assurances. The war and its fallout also revealed again the deep cleavages in Europe about how to deal with Russia. In sum, this war was a major blow to U.S. foreign policy and European security.

The spiraling downward trajectory of the U.S.-Russian relationship after the Georgia war is deeply troubling. Although Russia today certainly does not have the means nor the will to contest U.S. power around the world as during the Cold War, it is impossible to solve any of the most dangerous security challenges from proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to counterterrorism to climate change, energy security and a host of others.

Cooperation was rocky at best before Aug. 8; now we seem to be engaged simply in a shouting match, as official channels of communication between Moscow and Washington hardly exist.

Although we might deplore Russia's decision to invade Georgia - and certainly their choice rapidly and unilaterally to recognize South Ossetia and Georgia was wrong - the Russian consensus that they were right and justified in their response to the Georgian escalation of the conflict is overwhelming. This consensus does not reflect control of national TV and to a lesser extent other media so much as it does a national catharsis after more than 15 years of perceived geopolitical expansion of the West at Moscow's expense.

In September, Russia's young president, Dmitri Medvedev, told a group of experts and journalists in Russia that when he spoke with President George W. Bush on the phone during the hostilities, Bush asked him, "What do you need this for?"

Medvedev responded, "George, I had no choice, and if you were in my shoes you would have done exactly the same, only more brutally." Medvedev went on to say the United States and Georgia have made serious mistakes and that if Washington chooses to expand ties with Georgia and arm it, we do so "at our own risk."

When the young president unemotionally asserted that "we will not tolerate any more humiliation, and we are not joking," I believed him.

On Sept.