The Odd Couple
Once, he saw into Putin's soul. Now, Bush just wants to see if they can get along
It was a grim week--with North Korea firing a batch of missiles as a warning to its adversaries, a standoff continuing with Iran over its nuclear program, and more bloody attacks in Iraq. But Russian leader Vladimir Putin couldn't resist needling President Bush last Thursday. Noting that it was Bush's 60th birthday, the Russian president passed along best wishes from the global labor leaders he had been hosting in the Kremlin that afternoon. Everyone wished the embattled American president well, Putin said, except the labor leaders from America. Both men laughed, but Bush aides saw a larger point. "They like and respect each other," said a senior adviser. "They have many strong disagreements, but they have a very good relationship."
Despite such towel-snapping moments, however, Bush has gotten more realistic about Putin since they first met in June 2001. That's when Bush famously declared that he had "looked the man in the eye ... and was able to get a sense of his soul"--concluding that Putin was "very straightforward and trustworthy" and committed to reform. Things haven't turned out quite that way, of course, and today Bush's assessment looks naive and certainly premature. U.S. policymakers admit as much. "Our views on Russia are very realistic now," says a senior administration official, who concedes that the administration's early hopes for a "strategic partnership" were unfounded. "We've stepped back," says the official.
Careful criticism. As Bush prepares to meet Putin this week at the annual conference of the Group of Eight industrialized democracies in St. Petersburg, the Russian leader's hometown, he is under pressure to condemn Putin's lurches toward autocracy. Among them: clamping down on dissent, asserting control of his country's television networks (story, Page 40), and intimidating his independent-minded neighbors by threatening to cut off energy supplies. Some critics, such as former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, urge Bush to criticize Putin's backsliding in a very dramatic way this week. Arizona Sen. John McCain has even suggested that Bush boycott the entire conference in St. Petersburg.
Bush never considered such a draconian step. But he is trying to find a way to thread the needle by expressing disapproval for Putin's excesses while at the same time winning Kremlin support for his key international objectives. "First of all," a senior U.S. official told U.S. News, "this isn't the Cold War. The world is changing. Russia is no longer a strategic adversary, nor is it a strategic threat to the United States. I think it's clear that cooperating with Russia can help us solve a number of issues that are important for American security and American economic prosperity." They include halting the spread of nuclear weapons, fighting terrorism, and promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy. More urgently, Bush wants to secure long-term cooperation from Putin in pressuring Iran to abandon any nuclear weapons program. Russia, however, has been reluctant to back the stringent international sanctions that Bush wants. Another disappointment for White House officials is Russia's refusal to back strong sanctions against North Korea even after Pyongyang fired several test missiles last week.
Putin, for his part, wants to use this week's summit--the first time Russia has hosted the annual G-8 gathering--to gain legitimacy for his country as a major power. More pragmatically, he wants to promote Russian as a world-class energy exporter and gain support for his concept of a global nuclear energy partnership that would help Russia rebuild its nuclear industry.
President Bush has always placed a high premium on his personal relationships with other leaders. In Putin's case, not only has Bush exhibited trust in the Kremlin leader from the day they met, but he has tried to cultivate Putin with regular meetings around the world--18 so far--and frequent phone conversations. Bush even arranged a Putin visit to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, which Bush considers the top perquisite he can grant, since Prairie Chapel Ranch is his home. Bush believes his personal relationship with Putin will eventually pay off. "I don't necessarily agree with every decision he's made about what's happening inside of Russia," Bush told CNN's Larry King last week, "but it's very important for me to keep a good personal relationship with him so I can have good, candid discussions. But no leader wants to be lectured by somebody, no leader likes to be scolded publicly."
The question is whether Bush can parlay his relationship into something tangible in St. Petersburg. This remains unclear partly because of Russia's growing hubris. The administration has been concerned, for example, by Russia's threat to disrupt natural gas shipments to Ukraine and Georgia, putting pressure on the two young democracies led by politicians out of favor in Moscow. U.S. officials also complain about Moscow backing Aleksander Lukashenko, the dictator of Belarus, despite international pressure to stop his crackdown on opposition movements. Similarly, Russia is faulted for fostering separatist movements in the Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and in Moldova.
Petro-power. Part of the reason for Russia's assertiveness is the nation's vast earnings from the high price of oil. Energy-rich Russia now has foreign reserves of about $230 billion, translating into a more confident Kremlin--what Russia scholar Dimitri Simes calls "petro-arrogance." The attitude among many Russian policymakers, says Simes, is, "All this democracy business is a charade--or, more precisely, a stick to attack Russia and Russian allies like Belarus."
Putin and his aides were particularly angry over Vice President Dick Cheney's tough speech in Vilnius, Lithuania, on May 4 in which he blasted Putin's regime for backsliding on democracy and seeking to "reverse the gains of the last decade." This has increased "anti-American spirit" in Russia, senior Kremlin official Igor Shuvalov said last week.
A senior U.S. official told U.S. News: "One of the things that we want to do ... is not to isolate Russia, and to bring it into organizations and institutions that are rules-based, that have certain standards, and try to do what we can to get the Russians to live up to those standards." That includes the G-8.
More broadly, Bush is trying to build new partnerships--with Russia and other nations--after a first term in which he was derided as a unilateralist, a cowboy, and a warmonger. U.S. officials admit that it's particularly important to form coalitions now because so many hot spots are boiling over and the United States can't deal with them alone.
Complicating matters is that Bush's allies in the Iraq war are dwindling. Italy's Silvio Berlusconi left office in early May after his party lost a national election. Spain's Jose Maria Aznar was thrown out amid rising opposition to his support for the war. British Prime Minister Tony Blair is leaving office before the next national election. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi exits in September. One bright spot is in Germany, where Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, a fierce Bush critic, was pushed from office by voters earlier this year in favor of Angela Merkel, who favored better relations with the White House. Partly to cultivate Merkel, Bush will visit her in Merkel's home territory of Stralsund and Trinwillershagen before traveling to St. Petersburg.
The last thing Bush wants this week is a blowup that will revive his image as an arrogant Lone Ranger. So administration officials say the president will mostly make nice as he talks with his friend Vladimir and their counterparts amid the czarist palaces, churches, fountains, and other glories of Russia's imperial past.
With Thomas Omestad
This story appears in the July 17, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.