The shadow of the Soviet Union is again looming as Moscow flexes its muscles and the West does little, writes Chris Stephen.

Out of the smoke and fire of the Georgian conflict, a shape we know from the past is emerging – the bear of our old Soviet nightmares. It is weaker than it once was, but its energies are recharging and, most importantly, it is emboldened by the weakness of those perceived as opposed to its aims.

Russia's boundary disputes with its many neighbours are not new – what is, as seen in Georgia, is the Kremlin's strong-arm approach to solving them and the West's apparent inability to act against it.

Potential flashpoints now loom along the entire rim of Russia's border, by far the longest in the world, creating headaches for a dozen countries and leaving the outside world wondering where fighting will flare next.

Vladimir Putin's thirst to get back control of nations lost when the Soviet Union dissolved is one reason for Russia's urge for expansion. A more pressing one is the world's increasingly frenzied struggle to secure scarce mineral resources.

And after what can only be seen as a military success for Moscow, the Kremlin will have taken careful note of the reaction to its operations – the bear's appetite for trouble is sated, for now, but the taste was good.

The US, particularly, is feeling helpless. Washington has limited leverage over Moscow after years of strained relations on a range of issues from Iraq to the United States' insistence on placing missile defences in Europe. The next US president will inherit that chilly relationship.

"When you have very thin relations, it doesn't give you a lot of diplomatic tools," said Steven Pifer, a former US ambassador to Ukraine who is now a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, a policy institute. "There are not a lot of things in terms of US-Russian co-operation that we can threaten to stop, that the Russians care about."

First in the firing line of the new, combative Moscow is likely to be Ukraine. It has already felt Moscow's ire. Four years ago, after the Orange Revolution threw out a pro-Moscow regime that had rigged elections, Russia responded by quadrupling the cost of gas and then by cutting supplies in winter.

Poland and the Czech Republic are, meanwhile, feeling a chill after they agreed to the US missile defence shield being installed in their countries.

America insists the shield is intended only for "rogue missiles" from North Korea or perhaps Iran, but Russia fears it can be upgraded, cutting the potency of its own deterrent.

Russia could use its enclave of Kaliningrad as a springboard for military action against Poland, but a more likely weapon is gas supplies. It is planning a pipeline to take gas to Germany across the Baltic that will by-pass Poland and Ukraine, allowing Moscow to cut their supplies without upsetting its western European customers.