US President George W. Bush is threading the diplomatic needle
on a foreign trip - again.
He meets at the G8 summit in Germany with Russian President
Vladimir Putin, with whom relations are already strained.
In fact, US-Russian relations are veering toward breaking point
because of Bush's ambition to erect a missile defense system on
Moscow's doorstep.
But Bush is also bookending his summit stay with Putin and the
leaders of six other industrialized nations with calls on the Czech
Republic and Poland, former Soviet allies where Bush wants to base
major parts of the new shield. And that could hardly be seen as
anything less than a poke in the eye to Putin.
"This is a distinctive message that is as easily understandable
in Russian as it is in English," said Simon Serfaty, senior advisor
to the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies.
"The message is we're going to do what we're going to do, and
your concerns about the deployment of some marginal capabilities
designed for defense purposes in Central Europe are not going to
impress me."
Bush left on an eight-day, six-country European tour Monday.
Besides the Czech Republic, Germany and Poland, he also has Italy,
Albania and Bulgaria on his itinerary. He has meetings planned with
at least 15 foreign leaders, plus the Pope, and his schedule isn't
final yet. But his spat with Putin is still likely to dominate.
US officials have insisted - publicly and to Putin personally -
that the system planned for Eastern Europe is meant to protect NATO
allies against a possible missile launch from Iran, which the West
suspects of trying to develop nuclear weapons. Moscow isn't buying
it, insisting the system must be aimed at Russia and accusing
Washington of touching off a new arms race.
Saying it is now forced to strengthen its military potential,
Russia test-fired new missiles, and declared a moratorium on
observing its obligations under a key Soviet-era arms control
treaty.
Putin has unleashed a volley of remarks against Washington. He
has criticized "imperialism" in global affairs, saying the shield
would turn Europe into a "powder keg", and accused the US of "an
almost uncontained hyper use of force".
The missile defense flare-up came on top of Washington's worries
about backsliding on democracy under Putin's leadership - even as
the US courts Russia's assistance in curtailing Iran's and the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea's nuclear programs. Putin is
increasingly riled over what he views as US meddling in his
backyard.
To settle things down, Bush has invited the Russian president
for an unprecedented stay at his family's summer compound on the
Maine coast in July.
But he is also hosting Estonia's president at the White House
the week before.
Like the Czech and Polish stops, this meeting will not please
the Russians, angry as they are with Estonia for moving a memorial
to Soviet soldiers killed during World War II.
The overarching message from the Bush administration has been:
calm down. "The Cold War is over," Bush told foreign reporters
before the trip. "We're now into the 21st century." He called the
Washington-Moscow relationship "complex" - a term earlier used
mostly to describe the US' ties with China.
This sort of strategic travel planning isn't new for Bush. In
May 2005, he agreed to be with Putin at Red Square to celebrate the
60th anniversary of the end of World War II.
But he started that trip in Latvia and ended it in Georgia,
former Soviet republics both, which he used as backdrops for
rhetoric on the power of democracy.
When President Nixon traveled to Moscow in 1972, for instance,
he made counterweight stops in Poland and Iran. "It has some
benefit in trying to demonstrate to people who might be critical of
policies that there's a broader set of initiatives being pursued,
often to critics back home," said Stephen Sestanovich, senior
fellow for Russian studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
"When he goes to NATO or visits a major industrialized country,
he goes out of his way to go to the Baltics or to some part of the
former Soviet Union to sort of send a message that we're behind
this agenda," said Charles Kupchan, director of Europe Studies for
the Council on Foreign Relations.
"I think it really does make a difference." For Bush, unpopular
at home and in much of the world, it also offers photographic proof
that he still is revered in some places.
In the impoverished, struggling young democracy of Georgia, for
instance, the main road from Tblisi's downtown to the airport has
been called George W. Bush Avenue since his visit.
"There are countries that tire of having Air Force One touch
down," Sestanovich said.
"But very small countries that rarely get the treatment can
respond in very positive ways. And presidents who aren't used to
that kind of adulation at home anymore sometimes find it
invigorating."
(China Daily via agencies June 5, 2007)
