The 3-week-old storm in the Caucasus between Russia, Georgia and the United States rolls on with Russia's official recognition of the independence of two regions in Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

President Bush protested the Russian action and Vice President Dick Cheney will visit Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Italy next week. While the White House claims Mr. Cheney's visit was planned before the trouble started on Aug. 7, the vice president will go there with trouble simmering between the United States and Russia and the trip coinciding with the Republican National Convention.

Georgia is protesting Russia's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It also has a border dispute with Azerbaijan, which has a long-standing conflict with neighboring Armenia over control of Nagorno-Karabakh, another issue in the region that strenuously resists resolution.

Georgia and Azerbaijan are probably not ideal settings at this time for fiery American rhetoric. Russia is especially prickly on the patchwork of republics that make up the Russian Federation and the Caucasus. Russia has 83 pieces, 21 of which are republics, including Chechnya and others with issues such as Dagestan, Ingushetiya, North Ossetia and Tatarstan.

The post-independence status that Russia has in mind for South Ossetia and Abkhazia is still not clear. No other country has recognized their independence so far.

America's ability to influence events in the Caucasus is limited. Two U.S. ships carrying humanitarian aid have been sent so far, one a Navy destroyer and the other a Coast Guard vessel. Inflammatory messages issued by Mr. Cheney from the Caucasus and aimed partly at a Republican convention audience won't help to restore a reasonable relationship with Russia.

Russia is rich with oil and gas and has $600 billion in gold and foreign exchange reserves. It also holds an estimated $60 billion in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities. The Bush administration acts as if it doesn't understand in its dealings with Russia either the state of the U.S. economy or the greatly overstretched U.S. military capacity.

Americans can hope that the Russians realize it is just a question of waiting out Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney and not overreact to what the vice president may say. It is also fair to ask why he isn't traveling to Moscow to seek to calm down the Russians. Now that would be useful.