However it may dismay Americans to watch Russian tanks rolling over a tiny, democratic U.S. ally, you have to hand it to Putin — the invasion of Georgia was nothing short of brilliant.

The groundwork for this invasion was meticulously laid months in advance. One example: Russia sent troops into Abkhazia in late May on an ostensibly “humanitarian” mission to perform repairs on a major rail line in the region. Construction was completed July 30. Russia invaded Georgia nine days later, and — you guessed it — that very rail line was then used to transport Russian troops and supplies from Russian naval vessels in the Black Sea through Abkhazia to the front.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev announced today the end of Russian military operations in Georgia, saying the Russian military had “punished” Georgia enough for its incursion into South Ossetia. There’s certainly no doubt about that.

The Russian military stopped short of actually taking Tbilisi and toppling the government of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. But they didn’t have to. The Russian President has demanded the “de-militarization” of Georgia among his terms for agreeing to the cease-fire. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has publicly called for Saakashvili step down. Seeing as his grave miscalculation in South Ossetia led to a humiliating defeat for Georgia at the hands of the Russians, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s been hearing similar things from some of his own countrymen.

But even if Georgians decide to rally around Saakashvili (and this huge rally in Tbilisi yesterday indicated that for now, at least, Georgians are standing by their president), there’s always the Russian “Investigative Committee” I mentioned yesterday, which can “indict” Saakashvili for “war crimes” in South Ossetia and demand his extradition to Russia to face “trial.”

Regime change in Georgia (and an end to the irritation of having the pro-U.S., pro-EU, NATO-aspiring democracy-and-free-market-champion Saakashvili on Russia’s southern border) is certainly a goal of Moscow, but they’ve already accomplished their main objective. Russia has sent a very clear message to all nations formerly under Soviet domination: pursue a close relationship with the United States and Western Europe at your own peril — they won’t be there to back you up when it counts.

Western Europe, too, has gotten a similar message. While former Soviet satellites Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltic states are nervously calling for a total review of Europe’s relations with Russia and the strongest possible backing for Georgia (no doubt fearing for their own future), the rest of Europe — which relies on Russia for 30 percent of its oil — isn’t inclined to do anything that might upset Russia or jeopardize its energy supply.

The Italian government has already publicly warned against any “anti-Russian” sentiment in Europe. Germany, who also relies heavily on Russia for gas, opposed early proposals to move Ukraine and Georgia toward NATO membership for exactly the same reason, and is now likely to be even firmer in sticking to a don’t-antagonize-Russia policy.

More on Russia’s unspoken messages to both its “Near Abroad” and Western Europe can be found here.

One final note: Helene Cooper, writing in the New York Times, offered this:

While America considers Georgia its strongest ally in the bloc of former Soviet countries, Washington needs Russia too much on big issues like Iran to risk it all to defend Georgia…

What is striking to me is how unsettling it is to replace “Georgia” with “Taiwan,” “Russia” with “China,” and “Iran” with “North Korea,” and realize how chillingly plausible that sentence still sounds.

**UPDATE: Columnist Victor Davis Hanson echoes pretty much everything I wrote above about the brilliance of Moscow’s strategy, but naturally says it much more eloquently. A highlight:

Indeed, tired of European lectures, the Russians are now telling the world that soft power is, well, soft. Moscow doesn’t give a damn about the United Nations, the European Union, the World Court at the Hague, or any finger-pointing moralist from Geneva or London. Did anyone in Paris miss any sleep over the rubble of Grozny?

More likely, Putin & Co. figure that any popular rhetoric about justice will be trumped by European governments’ concern for energy. With just a few tanks and bombs, in one fell swoop, Russia has cowered its former republics, made them think twice about joining the West, and stopped NATO and maybe EU expansion in their tracks. After all, who wants to die for Tbilisi?

Russia does not need a global force-projection capacity; it has sufficient power to muscle its neighbors and thereby humiliate not merely its enemies, but their entire moral pretensions as well.