It would be a serious mistake for the international community to regard the dramatic escalation of violence in Georgia as just another flare-up in the Caucasus.

The names of the flashpoints may be unfamiliar, the territory remote and the dispute parochial, but the battle under way will have important repercussions beyond the region.

The outcome of the struggle will determine the course of Russia’s relations with its neighbours, will shape Dmitri Medvedev’s presidency, could alter the relationship between the Kremlin and the West and crucially could decide the fate of Caspian basin energy supplies.

Quite what triggered the Georgian offensive, on the day that the world was supposed to gather in peace for the start of the Beijing Olympics, is not yet clear.

It was known that a serious confrontation had been building up. British Intelligence predicted this year that a war in the Caucasus was probable. The focus was Georgia, the West’s main ally in the region and the only export route for Caspian oil and gas outside Kremlin control.

Part of the responsibility must lie with President Saakashvili. The US-educated Geogian leader has rightly been praised for turning around his country’s dire economy, transforming the Soviet-style army into a modern Western force and standing up to the Kremlin.

Georgia has been saddled for the best part of two decades with breakaway regions in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both supported by Russia as part of the Kremlin’s strategy to weaken Tbilisi’s authority. Nevertheless, seeking to reintegrate the separatist provinces by force is a risky, some would say reckless, move that threatens to trigger an all-out war between Russia and Georgia.

On paper the small Georgian military is no match for the might of Russia. But Mr Saakashvili has calculated that his friends in the West, notably America and Britain, will protect him. Russia must also shoulder responsibility for the crisis. Under President Putin, the Kremlin increased its support for Georgia’s breakaway regions, offering their inhabitants Russian citizenship and arming separatist forces while pretending to be honest broker.

The Kremlin tried to break Georgia’s resolve by deporting its citizens from Russia, imposing blockades and banning the import of Georgian goods. It had been hoped that the election this year of President Medvedev might lead to an easing of tensions between the two neighbours. It seems more likely that, thanks to Mr Putin’s continued influence as Prime Minister and the role played by hardliners in the military, Mr Medvedev may instead find himself embroiled in war.

The West, in particular America, has stoked the regional fire. At the Nato summit in Bucharest this year it pressed for Georgia and Ukraine’s membership of the alliance. The move was blocked by the Europeans but Nato did give a commitment to offer the two countries membership later. That move was seen in Moscow as a challenge to its dominance in what it calls the “near abroad”, the former Soviet republics.

Since then Russia has made clear in word and deed that it will do anything to prevent Nato’s expansion on its western and southern flanks.

America and Britain are closely involved in providing military assistance to the Georgians in the form of arms and training. The support is aimed at encouraging the rise of Georgia as an independent, sovereign state.

But the help is also partly a means of protecting the oil pipeline across Georgia that carries crude from the Caspian to the Black Sea, the only export route that bypasses Russia’s stranglehold on energy exports from the region.

If Georgia succeeds in reimposing its sovereignty over South Ossetia in the face of Russian opposition, it will be a huge setback to Moscow’s influence in the region and embolden other former Soviet republics, such as Ukraine and Azerbaijan. A defeat for the Georgians could signal the end of Mr Saakashvili’s rule and severely set back Georgia’s efforts to establish itself as a modern Western-looking democracy. Either way, the conflict risks further undermining the strained relations between Russia and the West.

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