Washington ? National character remains a force in world politics despite the prophets of globalization and one-size-fits-all economic integration. For better, and for worse, humans still see themselves as products of shared experiences and common territory and act accordingly.

At least their leaders do. Vote-seeking politicians and decree-issuing dictators have to find the political center of gravity in their nations. When they make big decisions, George W. Bush, Hu Jintao, Hugo Chavez and the others rely on national stereotypes of the average American, Chinese, Venezuelan et al. that they carry around in their heads. Leaders cannot for very long be other than their understanding of their followers.

So it was not genetics that compelled leaders in Russia, Ukraine, Germany, France and the rest of Europe to respond to a new tempest this week with familiar behavior. In starting a small “cold war” in his own neighborhood – by cutting natural gas supplies to Ukraine at the height of winter – Vladimir Putin was doing what comes naturally.

That is, he was being overbearing and clumsy in dictating to people he still considers Russia’s vassals. Like the commissars and czars before him, Putin is more comfortable with force than with persuasion.

Russia’s natural gas and oil reserves have replaced the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons as instruments of intimidation or, if Putin likes you, accommodation. He calls this approach “energy security,” as I outlined in a column in September after listening to him expound on that concept.

This is not simply a spat between Russia and a former Soviet republic that is trying to move out of Moscow’s sphere of influence. Putin chose to cut gas supplies to enforce draconian price increases on Ukraine (despite an existing long-term contract) on the day that Russia moved into the chair of the Group of Eight, the self-selected committee of leading nations that links North America, Europe, Japan and Russia.

Inviting Putin’s Russia to host the G-8 summit next July was always a controversial step. Within the Bush administration it was argued that this would help the Russians learn about statecraft: They would experience the responsibilities of building consensus and setting agendas with democratic partners. The squeezing of Ukraine suggests how steep the learning curve remains. It also dims the White House gloss on Putin as global chairman.

The Ukrainians – reflexively portraying themselves as victims responding to the depredations of their more powerful neighbor – appear to have siphoned off their normal share of the gas flowing through the pipelines that cross their territory into Central and Western Europe.

The siphoning inflicted the Russian cuts primarily on European Union consumers, who get about 25 percent of their natural gas supplies from Russia. Their howls of pain and outrage on Monday forced Putin to reconsider what he seems not to have considered at all – the likelihood that inflicting economic punishment could backfire on him. He has promised to restore full supply.

But old reflexes were already at work. German politicians were muttering about the threat from the east to their stability and the need to do something before the country’s 75-day reserve of gas is exhausted. Austrians were equally concerned, but asked others to do something. In Brussels, European Union officials held non-stop telephone conversations and meetings, emphasizing they would not take sides between Kiev and Moscow.

In Paris, the daily Le Monde editorialized that “the first war of the 21st century has been declared” by Putin, but joined to that Gallic cry of alarm official reassurances that France would not suffer in any event: It has already struck separate emergency deals with Norway, Algeria and other suppliers.

Putin’s brief gas war also serves to prove both Ronald Reagan and Francois Mitterrand right in their historic argument about the validity of economic warfare – up to a point.

Fearing that the Kremlin would use energy for political blackmail, Reagan opposed extending Soviet gas pipelines into Western Europe. In 1982, I asked the French president about Washington’s threats to sanction European companies that cooperated in the project.

“Economic warfare does not work,” an exasperated Mitterrand snapped as he launched into sharp criticisms of Reagan’s policy. The interview, I was told later, infuriated Reagan and led to the adoption of sanctions against European companies.

The sanctions were ineffective, as Mitterrand predicted, and the pipelines were built. But Putin has come along to validate Reagan’s view that the Kremlin would try energy blackmail in a pinch. Against all odds and late in the day, the Russian president has won one for the Gipper.