The west could be sleepwalking into a war on the European continent. Georgia, which burst into view with a moving display of democratic ambition during the Rose Revolution of 2003, is teetering on the brink of war with Russia over the separatist Georgian enclave of Abkhazia. The outcome of this crisis – involving a fledgling democracy with aspirations to join Nato and the European Union – will help determine the rules of the post-cold-war security system. But western diplomats are not sending strong enough signals to either side.

Moscow seems determined to provoke Tbilisi to take military action that would discredit Georgia in western eyes and kill the country’s aspirations to join Nato. Vladimir Putin used the west’s recognition of Kosovo as a pretext to strengthen his own country’s links with the breakaway republic. One of his last acts as Russian president was to establish “direct official relations” with Abkhaz quasi-state bodies; a move just short of outright diplomatic recognition. In early May, Russia sent an extra 1,000 “peacekeeping” troops to the region, using the cover of a United Nations mandate to change the balance of power in the enclave.