With the shaky American economy sending financial shockwaves around the world, the costly and bloody pacification of Iraq far from finished, Afghanistan on a knife-edge and the road map to peace in the Middle East going nowhere, President Bush has little to show for his two terms in office. One of his few remaining opportunities to make his mark as a statesman and leave a positive legacy is this weeks' NATO summit in Roumania.
It is an historic meeting in many ways. The fact that Russian President Putin is attending a NATO summit that is being held in the capital of a former Soviet satellite is testimony to how much the world has changed since the alliance was formed in 1949 to discourage a Soviet attack on Europe. Instead of dissolving after the collapse of communism and the Soviet Union, NATO has been steadily expanding its reach. The Clinton administration began the process of enrolling former communist East European nations as new members. The Bush administration is now trying to push NATO's boundaries right into the heartland of the former Soviet Union, including Ukraine – Russia's historic breadbasket and still an important part of the Russian economy – and Georgia, the birthplace of Josef Stalin.
There are other contentious issues between Presidents Putin and Bush. The United States and its major European allies support Kosovo's newly declared independence from Serbia. Russia strongly opposes it. President Putin views Mr. Bush's decision to plant an anti-ballistic missile system in Eastern Europe as a threat to Russia's own defenses. Mr. Bush insists it's aimed at a potential Iranian threat.
Attitudes on both sides have been shaped by a Cold War mentality that still dominates much of the thinking in military and governing circles. As the sole superpower after end of the Cold War, the United States saw little need to take into account Russia's security concerns. The Kremlin felt that the West showed no respect for Russia's position. And the East European countries deeply distrusted their former Russian masters.
With the rhetoric hardening in both Moscow and Washington, the NATO summit and the separate meeting between the two presidents in Sochi offer a chance to improve Russian-American relations before the frosty atmosphere turns to Cold War II.
The timing is good. President Bush, who was quick to trust Mr. Putin when he first met him, now seems loath to end their relationship on a bad note. He is finally making an effort to address Mr.Putin's concerns about the anti-ballistic missile bases, and Mr. Putin is said to be ready to announce measures to aid NATO in its combat against the Taliban in Afghanistan – an expansion of the role of NATO that is stretching its resources.
Mr. Putin and his elected successor Dmitri Medvedev are also aware that Mr. Bush may be easier to deal with than the next administration in Washington. One of America's smartest diplomats - former Undersecretary of State Richard Holbrook - believes the next American president, whether it's Obama, Clinton or McCain, is likely to take a tougher stand with Moscow.
West European diplomats believe now is the time to begin a more constructive dialogue with the Russians. Most of the arguments over NATO expansion and missile defenses are relics of the past and increasingly less relevant today. The political map of Europe has been redrawn. That's now history. The new threats to peace come from other quarters, and that's an opportunity to cooperate with Russia on countering terrorism, drug trafficking, the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology and other challenges to world stability in the Twenty-first century.
