Washington Post - 2.03.2002

 

Washington Post

Strategic Odd Couple

By Jim Hoagland

President Bush has scrapped the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, put American troops into Central Asia along Russia's borders and signaled that the United States will push a vigorous new round of NATO expansion in November -- all in four months and all without provoking serious outcry from Moscow. Vladimir Putin's Russia is the bear that did not growl.

In the sharpest paradox of current global politics, the personal relationship between Putin and Bush seems stronger today than it was before Sept. 11. On that infamous day, the Russian president was the first foreign leader to reach Bush. He used Cold War emergency communications links -- the hot line -- to notify the White House that Russia was canceling military exercises immediately.

And Bush's subsequent decision to withdraw from the ABM Treaty to pursue unconstrained missile defense tests did not inflict the severe damage to U.S.-Russian relations foreseen by many in Europe and here. Bush and Putin moved much closer to a president-to-president agreement to extend the 1972 treaty for two additional years than has been previously disclosed.

Russian officials now feel they may have erred in not doing more to accommodate Bush's position on testing to win an extension for the treaty last November. One collateral gain for the Russians in keeping in place the treaty they see as the cornerstone of strategic stability might have been to strengthen Secretary of State Colin Powell's hand in the policy debates that rage around Bush now.

But in both their U.S. summit in November and the heads-up telephone call Bush made to Putin one week before his Dec. 13 ABM announcement, the Russian leader frankly told Bush that there would be no drama from Moscow. "It won't be the end of the relationship. But it will be a mistake," is the way one Russian official characterized Putin's consistent private message to Bush on ABM withdrawal through the fall of 2001.

Putin's restrained reaction vindicates the Bush team's hard-nosed judgment that they could build a new relationship with Russia that was not centered on arms control. "Bush has understood that Putin is committed to stabilizing Russia and has accepted him as a genuine partner," German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said on a visit to Washington, in which he did not voice earlier criticisms of U.S. missile defense plans.

Putin now faces grumbling over his conciliatory approach on missile defense, Central Asia and NATO from Russia's military and foreign affairs community. He has taken political arrows to the chest on strategic issues that boost Bush with his conservative base here. But there are now signs that the White House sees the huge political deficit Putin has been willing to run as ultimately unsustainable.

Unlike Boris Yeltsin, Putin does not cloak his actions in sentimentality or the passions of the moment. The former KGB lieutenant colonel is a cold, calculating customer willing to make a virtue of Russia's weakness for the time being. He rides piggyback on American power, which is being dramatically and expensively extended into unfamiliar corners of the world on Bush's watch.

But the Russian seemed to voice genuine shock and sympathy in his Sept. 11 hot line call to Bush, which was handled at the White House by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. Rice quickly relayed Putin's message to an airborne Bush: While increasing the armed forces' general alert status, Putin said, he was ordering scheduled maneuvers canceled to avoid misunderstanding. The two leaders spoke directly, and emotionally, twice the following day, with Bush still voicing concern about possible attacks on the White House and his family, according to one account.

Even though it ultimately fell short, Bush's willingness to have his aides work with the Russians on a draft agreement for a two-year extension of the ABM Treaty has also been important in stabilizing the strategic dialogue between Washington and Moscow.

Deputy Foreign Minister Georgi Mamedov opened negotiations with Undersecretary of State John Bolton here last week on what both sides said was "a legally binding agreement" on strategic arms reductions that could be unveiled at the May 23 to 25 Bush-Putin summit in Russia. This is arms control by another name, and a timely tip of Bush's hat toward Putin. The Russian had rejected Bush's initial desire to proceed with informal "handshake" agreements on unilateral cuts rather than continue formal negotiations.

Bush is instinctive while Putin is cerebral. But each strikes the other as decisive, frank and stubborn in his politics. These are not bad qualities for a strategic Odd Couple who should now move rapidly and forcefully to cut and reshape nuclear arsenals that can still obliterate human destiny within a few minutes.