The United States and NATO failed to help Georgia substantively; only Tbilisi's neighbors offered the Caucasian nation anything close to practical support. As Western Europe will not want Georgia in NATO soon, we should dedicate most of our resources to the creation of an Eastern European Security Alliance that would defend Georgia and its neighbors against Russian imperialism while rebuilding America's reputation among its friends.

As Russian bombs fell on apartment complexes in Gori, Georgia, this week, President Bush made speeches. As Georgian ships sank in the Black Sea, NATO planned an "extraordinary meeting." As a Georgian woman fled her home towards Tbilisi, she asked "Where is America now?" Unlike our forceful responses to aggression in Kosovo and Kuwait in the 1990s, we were nowhere to be found.

Others share blame for the result of this conflict, of course. Georgian forces fell for Russia's ploy and poorly timed their strike against the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali. Russia also attacked efficiently, employing rapid land movements as well as air and artillery assaults that struck the base of every Georgian brigade except for the one serving in Iraq.

Ultimately, however, Russia saw NATO's failure to offer a Membership Action Plan at Bucharest in April as a bright neon-sign that read, "Attack Georgia before December" (when NATO will meet to discuss Georgia's potential membership). Russia's victory today goes far beyond its minimal goal of destabilizing Georgia. Moscow now likely believes it can, by de-fanging Tbilisi, possibly removing Saakashvili, and reducing the country's sovereignty, turn Georgia into a larger version of the mini-client-states it sponsors in Transdnistria, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia.

Georgia's neighbors' actions came far closer to practical assistance than anything offered by the international community, the United States, or NATO. Ukraine threatened to bar Russian ships that had returned from conflict with Georgia from Sevastopol; Moscow bases its Black Sea fleet at the Crimean port under a lease agreement that expires in 2017.

The leaders of Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, and Ukraine flew to Tbilisi to express solidarity with Saakashvili and issued assertive statements at the outset of the conflict. This begs the question: Why wasn't a trip to Tbilisi the first thing on President Bush's agenda when the conflict broke out? After all, the city boasts a highway named "George W. Bush" and played host to our president in 2005.

The United States has begun to offer real assistance, starting with a C-17 cargo plane that arrived in Georgia on August 13 with humanitarian aid. But Russia will get almost everything it wants in the final settlement. We acted too late, while Georgia's Eastern European neighbors responded to the threat immediately.

Georgians, and the citizens of other nations who rely upon American security guarantees--countries such as Iraq, South Korea, and Afghanistan--will not soon forget that American friendship helped little when conquering boots crunched rubble underfoot.

How can we begin to rebuild our reputation among our allies?

In the short term, we can massively increase the aid we're now sending to Georgia. We can help install a countrywide air defense system to offset the target-and-shoot Russian bombing that helped paralyze Georgian forces. We should declare attempts to remove Saakashvili or reduce Georgia's sovereignty to be redlines whose crossing would result in travel sanctions against Russian leaders.

In the long term, we should continue to push for a Georgia's membership in NATO. But this will not happen soon, as skittish Western Europeans do not want a conflict-prone country in their midst. In the meantime, one solution to this impasse is the creation of regional security framework that would ensure Russia does not repeat the South Ossetian model in Ukrainian Crimea, Azeri Nagorno Karabagh, or Moldovan Transdnistria.

On August 14, the Georgian parliament voted, upon Saakashvili's request, to leave the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Without NATO or CIS, Tbilisi stands outside a comprehensive security alliance.

As the CIS exists to protect Russia's security and not that of its smaller member states, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova should follow Georgia's path and remove all remaining connections to the CIS. Exiting the CIS will not prompt Russian action. Rather, much as NATO's April appeasement of Russia instigated Russian action this month, bolstering a regional balance of power to Russia will make conflict more costly for Russia and therefore less likely.

Only Georgia's neighbors--particularly Ukraine, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Azerbaijan--gave Georgia practical assistance during the conflict. These nations should join together in an organization that would guarantee mutual security and maintain active joint force presences in threatened member nations.

Some of these countries have already created an organization whose example could build towards this goal. Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova (GUAM) created the Organization for Democracy and Economic Development in the late 1990s to balance the CIS and Russian influence.

Poland, the GUAM nations, and the Baltic states should build upon GUAM's cooperation to form a new Eastern European Security Alliance (EESA). Now, with potential member nations under threat as never before, the organization could fulfill the goals GUAM envisioned.

GUAM discussed creating a joint peacekeeping force at its July 2007 Baku summit. EESA should embrace these security goals and GUAM's small steps towards security cooperation; the EESA's status as a new organization will set it apart and let it take action so that it can avoid becoming the debating society GUAM sometimes is.

Russia and the separatist area governments will surely protest the creation of such a force. If EESA cannot station peacekeepers inside contested areas due to such objections, the force should deploy in EESA member state territory around conflict zones to prevent actual or threatened invasions.

America should provide encouragement, funds, logistical support, and extensive training to create such a force. Washington has already started to recognize the wisdom of supporting regional forces by acceding to Polish demands for greater military aid in the missile defense deal completed on August 14.

EESA forces should focus on improving joint multinational military capacities. The major land force priority should focus on training troops to adapt tactically to the blitzkrieg-like maneuvers that Russian forces used to rout the Georgians.

EESA units would never achieve air parity with the large Russian air fleet, but it could improve integrated air defense to increase the cost, through more aircraft shoot-downs, of conflict for Russia--making war less likely and fighting with Russia, if it should occur, less likely to result in paralysis of the victims of Russian assault.

Russia cut Georgia off from the outside world by sinking at least one Georgian ship at sea to prove it could blockade the Caucasian nation. In a conflict scenario, naval assets from countries outside the Black Sea would have a difficult time gaining access to the body of water as Turkey would hesitate to allow access for fear of abrogating the control over the Bosporus Strait given to Ankara by the 1936 Montreux Convention.

EESA should work together to build a competent naval force native to the Black Sea to counter Russian attempts to dominate the open waters. Only 495 sailors compose Georgia's navy, and Moldova does not have a coast. Ukraine maintains the only somewhat viable Black Sea navy among the EESA countries, yet it operates only one submarine. The United States could accelerate development of a naval force by providing EESA with several Virginia-class New Attack Submarines to help close the gap with Russia.

America, NATO, the UN, and Europe have shown their unwillingness to aid Georgia's security in a time of crisis. As Russian revanchism threatens all eight of the EESA states, they share an interest in defending against Russian aggression. The example of Lebanon, with UNIFIL's failure to disarm Hezbollah, shows that international peacekeepers without a direct national interest in keeping the peace almost never assist a host nation in dangerous times.

As our administration and NATO do not seem to have the will to back up our allies in times of need for the present being, the solution to security threats lies in building up regional alliances. By empowering security organizations such as the Eastern European Security Alliance, we can provide a practical safety option for our allies in times of need and rebuild goodwill over time.

Charlie Szrom is a research assistant at AEI.