Fighting may spark a new U.S. policy battle over Russia

"There has always seemed to be a split within the government, so a consistent policy for dealing with Russia has been absent," said James J. Townsend Jr., who handled European relations at the Pentagon before joining the Atlantic Council of the United States think tank last year. "In the first term, there were a lot of hard-liners on Russia who did not look kindly on cooperation."

Kagan said the U.S. should announce that it will provide military aid to Georgia.

"It would be great if we were to announce we are going to help the Georgians rebuild as part of the compensation for their efforts in Iraq," Kagan said.

Other regional experts believe the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should enforce a no-fly zone over Georgia to put a halt to Russian air attacks.

"At what point does the West do something meaningful? Having the president backslapping with Putin at the Olympics is not a serious attempt to deal with the problem," said David L. Phillips, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. "The Georgians, who took us at our word when we talked about a partnership, have got to be wondering what Bush is all about."

Pentagon officials have dismissed calls for NATO combat air patrols, but Phillips said that calculation could change if Russia began strafing Tbilisi.

"The last thing Russia wants is a war with the West. If they came eye to eye with NATO warplanes, they would retreat," Phillips said.

Administration critics said that the fight within the White House over Russia policy has been more than just a bureaucratic battle; they argue that it led to mixed messages being sent to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili about the willingness of the U.S. to support Georgia in a war with Russia.

Robert Hunter, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO who worked to expand the alliance's relationship with Russia in the 1990s, said that although Moscow may have provoked Georgia into a fight, the fact that Saakashvili took the bait by moving his forces into South Ossetia last week is a clear sign that the Georgian president believed he would have Washington's backing.

"Saakashvili thought he had room to play," Hunter said. "I would have rather the Russians hadn't responded, but Saakashvili sure . . . did it, and he did it in the mistaken belief, I believe, that he had friends in [the Bush administration's] court."