BAKU, Azerbaijan  President Bush proposed $1 billion in humanitarian and economic assistance on Wednesday to help rebuild Georgia after its short, disastrous war with Russia last month, but he stopped short of committing the United States to re-equipping its battered military.

Mr. Bush announced the infusion of aid as Vice President Dick Cheney arrived here in what he described as a demonstration that the United States had “a deep and abiding interest” in keeping Georgia and other neighboring states free from a new era of Russian domination.

The aid  along with Mr. Cheney’s high-profile visit to a region the Russians call “the near abroad”  is sure to inflame tensions further. Russia’s leaders have openly accused the United States of having provoked the conflict by providing Georgia weapons and training for its armed forces, while encouraging its aspirations to join the NATO alliance.

The new package of aid, which requires additional approval from Congress, significantly expands assistance to a country that has become ardently pro-American in recent years, though at the cost of the worst relations between the United States and Russia since the end of the cold war.