AP

FROM Brussels this week NATO brandished a fist at Russia, warning it that there could be no “business as usual” so long as Russian forces remained in Georgia. The Russians, oddly, did not quail. If anything, President Dmitry Medvedev and his mentor and prime minister, Vladimir Putin, seem to be enjoying the world's impotent indignation in the face of their new-found machismo. And why not? They know that the West will not fight for the territorial integrity of Georgia, a trisected statelet of only 4m people in the faraway Caucasus. They also know that they will face no serious economic punishment. As a collective, NATO may huff and puff, but the cold fact is that many of its big members need a lot of business with Russia to continue. Germany and others in Europe need to keep buying Russia's oil and gas. America needs Russia, too, in order to secure vital foreign-policy objectives of its own, such as preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Does this mean that Russia will get away with its smash-and-grab operation? In one sense it does. Russia's intentions were unclear this week; it drove some tanks here and there for the benefit of the cameras (see article). But if it is determined to keep its forces in Georgia proper despite the ceasefire agreement brokered by France, Germany and America, it is hard to see what any outsider can do about it. Georgia's dispute with Russia would then once again become a “frozen” conflict, except with different de facto borders.

The wider aims with which Russia is presumed to have entered Georgia have not yet been achieved, however. They include toppling its pro-American president, Mikheil Saakashvili, and using intimidation to stop Georgia and Ukraine from following the Poles, Czechs, Balts and other former dominions of the Soviet Union into the orbit of the West and thence into NATO. If it pursues sound policies, the West still stands a fair chance, despite its divisions, of thwarting these aims.

Sound policy starts with a sense of proportion. Contrary to some excitable first reactions, Russia's ability to crush the minuscule Georgian army does not make it a superpower, and its aggression in the Caucasus need not mark the start of a new cold war. To put things in perspective, America's GDP is ten times bigger than Russia's and it spends at least seven times more on defence. Russia's economy would fall off a cliff if energy prices slumped and its population, racked by ill-health and inequality, is shrinking by up to 800,000 a year. Russia can make mischief, but it cannot project military and ideological power all around the world, as the Soviet Union did during the cold war. Although it scares some neighbours (but not the Chinese), its threats make them all the more determined to stay on guard. It is surely no coincidence that after months of prevarication the Poles agreed immediately after Russia invaded Georgia to let America base missile defences (ostensibly against a future threat from Iran) on Polish territory.

To say that Russia's strength is exaggerated is not to say that it should be allowed to escape its Georgian adventure unpunished. A weak power can be more reckless than a strong one. Russia needs to learn that in spite of their own enervating foreign wars and economic worries the members of the Western alliance can still unite in front of a challenge. But because Russia is fundamentally less strong than it likes to pretend, the West's response can afford to be patient as well as principled.

One principle the West must insist on is the legitimacy of Georgia's government. However foolish Mr Saakashvili was to give Russia a pretext for invasion, he should stay in office until Georgians themselves throw him out. Another principle is the right of any country, even if it is a former Soviet vassal in what Russia still counts as its own sphere of influence, to ask to join NATO. Naturally, the alliance should not admit members who are unready, or for whom it is not in the end willing to fight. On this test, Georgia might never get in. But to give Russia a veto would be to mock the sovereignty of small countries.

Just wait

As to patience, suspending business as usual should not be pushed to the point that drives Russia into the sort of sulk that will make its behaviour worse. Finding the line between disapproval, pressure and continued engagement will be hard. Too much concern for the hurt feelings of a fallen empire could be misread as weakness and so encourage further bullying. But there is vital work to be done—on nuclear proliferation and arms reduction, for example—in which the need for co-operation with Russia simply outweighs the need to punish it.

So Russia will keep its tanks in Georgia if it wants to. But the longer it does so, the less Europe will want to rely on Russia for its energy, the longer it will wait to join the World Trade Organisation, the more hostile the next American president will be and the more its nervous neighbours will be tempted to turn to the West for safety. The job now is to explain to Russia that this may not have been such a victory for machismo, after all.