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BULLY-BOY Western powers now look to be preparing an intervention in Chechnya similar to their recent military adventure in Kosovo.
Chechen leader Aslan Maskhador has met with new NATO chief George Robertson and claimed that what was happening was a "violation of democracy and human rights."
That was an almost exact replica of the phrases used by the Kosovo Liberation Army when it was trying to get NATO to take action against Yugoslavia.
In Kosovo, NATO and the European Union seized on mistakes made by the Yugoslav government as a pretext for action. In Chechnya, they are repeating the pattern by seizing on errors made in Moscow.
But, in both cases, NATO and the EU have ignored a central tenet of international law, which says that there should be no interference with the internal affairs of another country.
In Kosovo, United States President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair ran roughshod over this long-established principle in their rush to break up Yugoslavia once and for all.
In Chechnya, the signs are that they are prepared to do the same thing in their rush to break up Russia.
Kosovo was a dangerous enough military adventure, which threatens to have long-term repercussions in the Balkans.
In Chechnya, there is an even greater danger of a conflict spilling over into the near East and into central Asia, which is already an unstable region.
And the stakes are far higher in Chechnya than they were in Kosovo because of the vast oil wealth in the Caucasus region.
The vultures have long been circling, preparing for an excuse to intervene and weaken Russian influence in the area.
Back in 1994, Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, one time foreign minister under Mikhail Gorbachov, called for the integration of the central Asian and Caucasus states into the world market.
And there are worrying signs that oil-rich Azerbaijan could become involved in any dispute. Azeri politicians are already making noises about helping their Muslim brothers, much as, in the early stages, the Saudis stirred up the Kosovo separatists using religious language.
The Azerbaijan oil industry has attracted a motley crew of foreign interests in recent years, including several Tory MPs and Lady Thatcher's son Mark.
NATO already has troops stationed in Azerbaijan ready for an adventure. And, when oil interests are involved, the situation can get particularly ruthless.
Earlier this century, Azerbaijan suffered terribly from the cruelty of oil interests. Among the martyrs of the Soviet revolution were the 26 Baku Commissars who backed the national liberation struggle against the oil interests.
Now those oil interests are again weighing up a war of aggression. They want Caspian oil to be transported to Western markets through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, rather than through Russia or Iran.
Billions of dollars are at stake. It is worth remembering, as NATO politicians prepare for a fresh war, that there are powerful economic interests operating behind the scenes.