Mark this moment: we're witnessing the end of the unipolar world order.

Regardless of who started this fracas and who's right or wrong, Putin has been shrewd in his actions since the crisis started. His destruction of the military infrastructure in Georgia isn't really an attempt to neutralise a protential threat to Russian security, but is a message to the world the USA is no longer the world's policeman.

Politics aside, the US lost any moral integrity it had when it sanctioned torture and invaded Iraq in the pursuit of non-existent WMDs, so across the world ordinary people don't believe it has the right to impose it's will across the globe any longer. The 'War on Terror' the White House has spent so long propagandising has allowed the balance of power on the world stage to shift; Russian spent all that time dismantling

Georgian military bases built by the USA to show the world US influence in the region is waning. In Europe, people are under no illusion about the potential threat Russia poses as the cold war is not such a distant memory and a return to those dark days is rightly feared. The fact is, if Russian tanks roll into the Ukraine tomorrow, who's going to able to stop them? Not Europe: They would seek a negotiated settlement rather than risk open war in it's own backyard. Not the US; tied up in Afghanistan where it will never win and still committed to clearing up the mess it made in Iraq.

Putin's actions have demonstrated to the world the days of a belligerent US as the key shaper of world events is over. The foundations of Putin's power may be shaky: Russian hydrocarbons won't last forever and the ethnic makeup of the country means many of it's own citizens aren't overly fond of Moscow (and remember the Chinese are not keen on the idea of a resurgent Russia), but with the KGB active internationally again and the world economic clout shifting ever eastwards he is wiley enough to play what aces he holds to his own advantage.

The multipolar world is back; time to get on with making sure it's better managed this time around than the unipolar one it's replacing.