The Bush-Putin Pas de Deux

...I am pleased and impressed," he said of Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, despite their rebuffing his suggestion for a private PutinBush meeting prior to the Genoa G-8 summit scheduled for July...

...Bush requires Putin's acquiescence to make his Star Wars dream palatable to his European allies and his domestic opposition...

...In response, while professing reluctance, Putin threatened to rebuild Russia's nuclear forces, including the MIRV, if the U.S...

...The presidents also laid plans for future visits to each other's home ground...

...The aftermath of Genoa was the Ljubljana story once again...

...have underscored their common interests...

...Russophobia has gone out of style...

...To blunt the Americans' "rogue state" argument, he went to North Korea to secure its forbearance on missile testing...

...pretensions of global hegemony...

...In the long run, the deeply contradictory attitudes each country still bears toward the other are nevertheless likely to make their dance an awkward one...

...Never mind that old-fashioned deterrence, including the prospect of a pre-emptive strike, would answer any such threat more assuredly...

...On the other, it is an overweening threat to Russian national pride and even Russian national identity...

...The objective of his mid-March visit was to soft-pedal confrontation and keep the Americans talking...

...The U.S...

...The projected consultations have gone ahead more intensively than ever, though, extending now to senior defense people...

...Bush concurred—"The two go hand in hand"—as he dispatched Condoleezza Rice to Moscow to set up "a specific timetable of discussions" on both arms and economics...

...Bush officials needled Russia over the Chechen war...

...Putin seeks from Bush the recognition that Russia is a power he has to treat in some sense as an equal...

...The excuse that Bush's schedule was too tight for an "unessential" international contact was transparently insulting...

...He waved the China card—partly to appease Russian nationalists, who were pushing for a Eurasian turn in his foreign policy...

...Rapport at Ljubljana went beyond what the staffs on either side had intended...

...We are aiming at a partnership to look forward," said Putin at theirjointpress conference...

...Russia must build its foreign policy on the basis of a clear definition of its national priorities, pragmatism and economic efficiency...

...Out of half a year's diplomatic to-and-fro he has gotten the main thing he wanted—respect, so Russia could again hold its head up...

...In mid-month Putin underscored his Eurasian option by signing a new "Friendship Treaty" with China's Jiang Zemin, and reiterating their joint goal of a "multipolar world"—i.e...

...American spokesmen speak of ending the division of Europe, but the practical effect is simply to move the line of demarcation eastward...

...missile program...

...For Russia, this means dialogue first and foremost...

...Will this cozy relationship hold up until Bush and Putin meet again...

...Washington assures Moscow that NATO is no longer directed against it, but protection from the Russians is precisely the reason why NATO's new and prospective members in East-Central Europe want to join up...

...The meeting opened the door for Sergei Ivanov to go to Washington, a breakthrough that largely passed beneath the radar of the American media...

...All of these contradictory impulses have influenced the curious dance of the two governments since George W. Bush took office this past January, seemingly bent on reviving the Cold War, while Vladimir V Putin, President of the Russian Federation for just a year, seemed determined to challenge US...

...Ivanov was frank about his mandate to silence potential military criticism of compromises with the U.S...

...The official Russian Gazette said, "Personal rapport was the most important result of the summit...

...Early in July he received French President Jacques Chirac, who (not surprisingly) reaffirmed his supportforthe ABM treaty...

...Within a month, Secretary of Defense DonaldH...

...Rumsfeld and Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei B. Ivanov locked horns over the ABM and NMD issues...

...At onepoint the two leaders took a walk together, and even shucked their interpreters for a time as Putin tried out his newly minted English on Bush...

...in post-Communist Russia have been equally schizophrenic, though in a different way...

...They could hardly find enough good words to shower on each other...

...Two issues inherited from the Bill Clinton-Boris N. Yeltsin era hang over the whole Bush-Putin pas de deux...

...Russian patience began to pay off at the next meeting of Powell and Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, this time in Paris in mid-April...

...Putin has not relied on American beneficence, as Yeltsin did...

...I was told that the President cannot listen for long, that he preferred talking himself," said Putin...

...had demonized— Iran, Iraq, Libya—while steadfastly denying any desire to rile the United States...

...A New York Times Magazine cover story on August 5 by Jack Hitt, entitled "Battlefield: Space," may have provided the reason...

...He later went to South Korea and became the only world leader to win the good will of both sides...

...The other leads a sinking country that has become the sick man of Eurasia, but plays his weak hand shrewdly...

...On the other, it is the target of a new containment drive to press America's post-Cold War advantage over a hasbeen adversary...

...Assuring Ivanov that Russia's views would be "taken into account," even on missiles and NATO expansion, Powell invited him to Washington...

...According to the Strategic Master Plan [developed last year by the Air Force], NMD is but one part of a triad of technologies...

...The one, commanding the world's only superpower, has all the aces in his hand but plays them clumsily, as though by rote...

...Not only the position of our country in the international arena, but also the political and economic situation in Russia itself depend on how correctly and efficiently we use our diplomatic resources...

...Yet Putin could not have been too dissatisfied with Sergei Ivanov's performance, because two weeks later he named him Minister of Defense, the first civilian to hold the post since Nikolai A. Bulganin in the late Stalin years...

...What was unexpected, both for me, and I think for President Bush as well, was the understanding that was reached today between us on the issue that offensive arms and defensive arms will be discussed as a set...

...This first direct presidential encounter was immediately etched into Americans' awarenessby Bush 'sremarkthathe looked Putin in the eye and saw a man he could trust...

...He offered his services as mediator (however unlikely) in the Balkans and in the Middle East...

...It is defended on the grounds that the Cold War is over, hence Cold War arms limitation agreements—specif ically the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) that would be violated by the scheme—do not have to be observed anymore...

...Vladimir N. Lukin counseled against a tit for tat response: "This U.S...

...Let us hope that this will develop positively...

...Nothing could be a clearer relic of the Cold War than NATO expansion...

...Back in Washington, Powell and Rice lost no time affirming that the ABM treaty would not be allowed to stand in the way of the U.S...

...Headlines were made as the two leaders announced agreement on linking revision of the ABM treaty—or loosening it into a "framework"—with mutual cuts in offensive missiles...

...The G-8 meeting itself was marked by rudely distracting and frequently violent antiglobalization protests in the streets...

...on missiles: "Before making unauthorized public statements, they can promptly write letters of resignation...

...Like comedian Rodney Dangerfield, Putin wants above all to get some respect...

...The second is the American plan for a national missile defense (NMD), in other words Star Wars redux...

...It was easy for the Ljubljana encounter to exceed all expectations, because, as Russian analyst Andrei Piontkovsky observed, "No one expected anything from it...

...Putting some of his meager finances where his mouth was, he ordered his Strategic Missile Forces to conduct a missile shield penetration test—successfully, it was claimed...

...because the U.S...

...Bush, in turn, has gotten what he wanted—legitimacy to circumvent the critics of his vision for the world...

...Shortly before the Slovenia summit, Russianjoumalist Alexander Golts declared: "We are proving to ourselves, as well as to the rest of the world, that we are still a world power and we are still equal to the U.S...

...By mid-March, after the Robert P. Hanssen spy scandal and the expulsion of 50 Russian Embassy employees from Washington, both sides realized the time had come for some restraint...

...The American fixation on national missile defense is a puzzle for the analyst as much as it is an incubus for the diplomats who have to explain it...

...By midsummer, after their meetings in Slovenia in June and Italy in July, each leader had backed away from his expressions of inflexibility and embraced his counterpart as a paragon of trust and ongoing cooperation...

...Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was doubtless getting a confidential earful from his overseas embassies about foreign distaste for all the signs of American unilateralism...

...Administration is simply imitating the Reagan policy in the absence of that policy's two targets—Communism and the Soviet empire...

...discusses something with us...

...in its power and Russia in its impotence...

...Staffers on each side tried to minimize the concessions made...

...Attitudes about the U.S...

...On the one hand, Russia has become the prime object of a messianic urge to recast the world in the American image...

...For the West to get beyond this impasse it would have to invite Russia itself into NATO, a move increasingly hinted at by Western officials and echoed—"purely theoretically"—by Putin too...

...Given the inherent limits to the efficacy of NMD, why are the Russians and even America's European allies making a fuss over "Bush's madcap venture," as a former British defense official called it, instead of letting the U.S...

...Bush invited Putin to Crawford, Texas in November, and Putin reciprocated with an invitation to Moscow at a later date...

...He held out the hand of friendship to countries the U.S...

...The one wants to be liked by everyone, shrugs off concerns about his capacity for governing, and offends both his domestic opposition and uncooperative foreign powers...

...His books include The End of the Communist Revolution and Russia's Transformation...

...At the same time, he kept the door open for closer relations with Western Europe, attending the March European Union summit in Stockholm and periodically hinting that he was willing to join the EU and perhapsNATO if invited...

...Columnist Dmitri Kosyrev of the Independent Gazette saw "a wellplanned campaign to downgrade Moscow's status...

...Initial relations between Moscow and the new Bush Administration headed for the freezer...

...IN THE weeks prior to the G-8 summit, held in Genoa July 20-22, Putin kept up his diplomatic maneuvering to exploit America's quandary over the appearance of unilateral action...

...waste its money on anachronistic war games...

...to its new position: "Our two countries can deal effectively with new global challenges and threats only on the basis of equal and mutually beneficial cooperation...

...A few days afterward, Foreign Minister Ivanov met personally with Bush and won a definite agreement on the presummit meeting, to take place in Slovenia's capital of Ljubljana during Bush's forthcoming trip to Europe...

...The first is the eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO...

...NATO'S orthodox supporters protest that such a step would vitiate the organization, yet that concern makes sense only if the real purpose of NATO is still anti-Russian...

...He went on: "The trick is to derive some advantage from a seemingly hopeless situation...

...Robert V. Daniels, a frequent NL contributor, is professor emeritus of history at the University of Vermont...

...Corrective steps were, in fact, already under way, reflecting each side's desire not to be isolated—the U.S...

...The same argument also makes NMD pointless, but the danger of a "rogue state" attack has been conjured up in an attempt to justify the plan...

...The Slovenia summit was duly held on June 16, at an old castle near Ljubljana...

...On February 24, he and Russian Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov took advantage of their joint presence in Cairo to talk for an hour and a half...

...Bush to assure that he would follow a consultative approach toward his preconceived goal...

...Each man went a bit further: Putin to soften his expressed opposition to the American missile scheme...

...As far as the two presidents were concerned, their post-G8 encounter on July 22 was largely a replay of Ljubljana...

...broke the treaty...

...But it all turned out differently...

...He is a former KGB operative, like Putin, and probably the Russian President's closest advisor...

...of "inheriting Soviet globalism...

...Duma opposition leader and former Ambassador to the U.S...

...From his installation on New Year's Eve of 1999, he has been casting a wide net to snare allies and to exploit cracks in the American-led alliance confronting him...

...This Ivanov is a key figure in the Russian power structure...

...But before delivering it, he phoned Putin to explain his "new vision" for peace...

...Ivanov's statement on his return home was calculated to hold the U.S...

...What Moscow feared most," wrote Gornostayev, "was that the Americans would spurn any dialogue on this issue...

...agreed that it might not be a bad idea after all for Bush and Putin to have a pre-summit summit...

...one not dominated by the U.S.A...

...At their joint press conference, noted the political scientist Vyacheslav Nikonov, "The presidents made comments about partnership, friendship, and even possible allied relations, which would have been difficult to imagine just a few months ago...

...This is a man with whom I can have an honest dialogue," said Bush of Putin...

...In April, during his annual address to the Russian Parliament, he summarized his practical approach to foreign policy: "There must be no illusions here...

...In this first contact at that level between the two administrations, it was at least agreed to disagree...

...The President proved to be a very attentive and very interested listener...

...The other is an intelligent, self-controlled Machiavellian who aims to co-opt or sidestep potential opponents both at home and abroad...

...Putin's foreign policy guru, Gleb Pavlovsky, accused the U.S...

...In return for all this pleasantry, the Russians secured the creation of binational working groups to explore strategic stability and economic relations, plus a schedule of dialogues for the rest of the year...

...The President is pleasant to talk to, a pleasant man...

...that, the Air Force hopes, will lead to 'total space control' " Paradoxically, thanks to his NMD obsession Bush needs Putin as much as his Russian counterpart needs him...

...The recent terrorist attacks on the U.S...

...On the one hand, America is a model of success and a magnet of popular culture...

...He has traveled incessantly to line up support (even by Canada) for the ABM treaty...

...In the short run—that is, from now to at least November—both have too much to lose to upset the delicate balance they have established...

...The Russian press has diverged widely in assessing this outcome, but for Izvestia it was a "win-win" result: "Putin has learned how to turn weakness into strength...

...Commented Dmitri Gornostayev of the Independent Gazette, "It is important that Moscow is managing to draw Washington into this dialogue...

...What is not so well remembered is that Putin said practically the same thing of Bush: "A very trusting relationship developed immediately," he told the American press corps on his return to Moscow...

...The Russians detected a change of tone in his promise to consult with all concerned...

...Bushchose May 1—still a Russian holiday—for a tough speechjustifying NMD...

...Thisprogress defied the difference between Bush and Putin as personalities...

...The political controversy generated by the NMD notion, Hitt pointed out, "has obscureditslargerpurpose...