In hindsight, there was a lot more stability and predictability interwoven during the times from 1945 to the fall of the Berlin War and the term Cold War was a mere misnomer. After two decades of hodgepodge and misguided policy, trash talk vocabulary instead of diplomacy, and a McDonaldization of the so-called Western approach towards the rest of the world, Russia might well be fed up and in turn she has decided to contain this rogue approach. Georgia can serve as a convenient laboratory.

Should Russia throw its weight around? When you have lemons, make lemonade! Moscow might well think, why it should not stand up and be noticed as a super power? Others are acting like a deaf bull in a china shop and building a missile defense shield in Polish and Czech territories, so why should Russia sit and be silent? After all, that has become the "Western" playbook's guiding rule, especially as America's finances increasingly mirror the budget shortfalls of the U.S.S.R. in 1970s and the distance between the "sides" is shrinking.

Each side could take its turn on the stage. Two years ago to this week, America turned a blind eye and vetoed Security Council resolutions to stop Israel from bombing Lebanon for 33 days. It was hyped in a simplified black-white media frenzy -- Israel stood for the "good" and against the "bad" (and never mind that Israel finally made a deal with Hezbollah two years later and Lebanon is now the only neighbour that has no prisoners in Israeli jails).

And in a new comedy of errors, cries of "foul play"; and "disproportionate force" from Georgia, with its 100 American and 700 Israeli military advisers, are falling on deaf ears. And never mind that Georgian military budget is now 30 times larger than two years ago -- thank you oil pipeline transit fees!

Russia might argue that "Regime Change" is not a patented process of the western alliance, is it? Or could Russia wonder if is it all about a crawling land and oil grab to undermine the soft underbelly of it's great land mass; some sort of a post-Cold War illusion covered up with an orgy of trash talking publicity, cheap one-liner labels and irresponsible name-calling? Have the dividing lines between the real world and video game fantasies disappeared? And, speaking of containment, is it fair to put the Iraq "thing" on the same table? If America invaded Grenada and Panama, could Russia not roam Georgia?

Some will jump up and argue that democracy is the key difference. But didn't the institution of democracy in Russia and Georgia start on the same day -- when the U.S.S.R. broke up? And if, in turn, it is argued that Georgia is an ally and part of NATO's famous, if delusional, Partners for Peace program, how could Georgia be a concurrent member of the Commonwealth of Independent States? So, it might well be a timely stress test of the advertised partnership or of whether it is indeed about peaceful intentions.

Perhaps it is a about an oil pipeline and its paltry daily output, about half a percent of daily oil consumption in the world. And if so, how come Russia (whose Lukoil giant is a partner in the Azeri oil deal that fills that pipe) did not grab control of it?

Georgia is a country that has yet to see its 18th anniversary. And it was bewildering to see how the European Union flag ended up as background prop of Western TV interviews with the Georgian president as he disingenuously argued for democracy and, in the same breath, complained about Russians in the Georgian town of Gori -- where a statue of Joseph Stalin is featured in the main town square! To paraphrase the Marx Brothers, should I believe you, Mr. President, or my lying eyes?

What about agreements? Is standing by one's word a democratic or a universal standard? Russians and Georgians have been at odds since the early days of 19th-century during the Great Game. The Russians entered South Ossetia in 1991, when Georgia agreed to set aside armed action against Russian Ossetians and to resolve the conflict at a negotiation table. Somehow, Georgia forgot to invite its neighbor to discuss the issue.

We have seen many episodes of instability and dangerous unilateral actions since the end of Cold War, on both sides of the former Berlin Wall: Iraq's attack on Kuwait, Israel's renege of Oslo, the occupation of Iraq and the neglect of many regional, festering problems in places such as Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistiria, Cyprus, Kashmir.

Georgia will serve as an overdue notice about learning lessons from the Cold War era, instead of replicating a cheap rerun of it. Many in Western capitals that wistfully sigh and muse over Cold War I, or continue to fight it in their minds, are at a fork in the road. From time to time, they wish to put Cold War II in action, even resorting to fabricated virtual hostilities (say, the supposed danger of Iranian intercontinental missiles pointed at Europe, Iran's largest trading partner, and thus a need for a missile shield on Russian borders in Europe). But they, and their Georgian bride have confused their wedding in a late and farcical midsummer night's dream. The world has changed beyond recognition. A laughable and desperate hijack of the E.U. flag with Stalin's statue in the same country sorely misses the point. Alternatively, the Georgian president is trying to wedge himself in a ruse and a replica of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1960s. But the shoe is on the other foot. Chances are that this Georgian comedy of errors will amplify the need to revise western policies and its McDonaldization of international self-containment.