"A passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils," said George Washington in his farewell address in 1796. Mere sympathy for that other country can create the "illusion" that our interests are the same, he said, dragging America into another nation's "quarrels and wars."

Now, 214 years later, comes another American leader, Vice President Dick Cheney, who last week was pushing to make Georgia a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. "Georgia will be in our alliance," Cheney told reporters last week alongside Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.

Or maybe not.

Americans might do well to recall Washington's words as our leaders parade to Georgia, a quiet, little-known Black Sea nation until Russian tanks rolled across its southern border last month in the latest chapter of an ages-old ethnic and tribal dispute. Georgia was part of the Soviet Union until 1991. Some of its people, especially in the South Ossetian region, still regard themselves as Russian. Others hate the Russians with tribal passion.

This is a problem for the Georgians to work out, without Russia's interference and without the United States pledging the lives of young Americans to the cause.

Georgia is led by a man reckless enough to send his army into the breakaway province of South Ossetia, knowing that it could provoke a Russian invasion, which it did. Had Georgia been part of NATO, the Russians might have stayed out. Then again, perhaps not, in which case NATO and Russia might now be at war.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his puppet president, Dmitry Medvedev, say they sent their army to protect the Ossetians and Russian peacekeepers. In truth, they were sending the West a message about power. Russia draws much of its new economic strength from oil and gas, much of which is sold to Europe. The Georgians provide an alternate route — one that bypasses Russia — for channeling energy out of the Caspian Sea and Central Asia. Europeans and Americans have been encouraging that alternate route.

Putin's message: We can shut off those pipelines whenever we want.

The best support for Georgians today is quiet diplomacy. The Russians may be rich on energy, but they need access to modern technology and Western markets. They want membership in the World Trade Organization. Western nations, speaking as one, should convey to the Russians what they may lose.

NATO began as an alliance of Western nations determined to fend off the Soviet Union. When that empire collapsed, the alliance moved east to include former Soviet satellites, making the Russians nervous. Cheney and his allies see Russia's bullying of Georgia as the first step toward reassembling the old empire.

But the old empire was isolated. Russia's new state-empowered capitalists need Western markets, and the Russian people have gotten used to Western goods. European members of NATO also are Russian trading partners. Economic self-interest is a better motivator than territorial ambition.

REPRINTED FROM THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH.