Putin defuses tensions, leaves doubts among the West

The abrupt thaw between Russia and the US at the Group of Eight gathering in Germany on Thursday raises the question of what weeks of tensions were about in the leadup to the summit.Washington welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s call for the US to use a radar station in Azerbaijan, a former Soviet nation on the Iranian border, as part of a planned missile defence system in Europe. The White House national security adviser instantly hailed it as a sign of Moscow’s willingness to cooperate on the missile shield.In Russia, US President George W. Bush’s agreement to consider the plan will be interpreted as a sign of Moscow’s renewed strength and respect.But some analysts say the Russian president dramatised and exaggerated any threat in the first place, and that the furore was never about missiles.Instead, some believe, the Kremlin wanted to raise its profile in a bid to regain some of Russia’s former status as a world power. By increasing tensions with the West, Moscow may also have hoped to rally popular support at home in advance of parliamentary and presidential elections.Whether Thursday’s meeting between Bush and Putin will lead to renewed cooperation or continuing confrontation is still not clear.Despite the White House’s agreement to consider the idea, there are still issues that divide Moscow from the US and Europe. And in the long run Russia appears to be trying to cut the ties that moor it to the West.In seeking to lower tensions, Western leaders took pains this week to point out that today’s Russia would not make a formidable foe.“Russia is not a threat,” Bush said on Thursday before his meeting with Putin. “They’re not a military threat. They’re not something that we ought to be hyperventilating about.”Neither, though, is Russia a mere nuisance.During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was dismissed by some as “Upper Volta with nukes” because of its poverty.Today Russia has a trillion-dollar economy, the world’s largest oil and gas industry and controls a significant fraction of the globe’s strategic metals. Moreover, Moscow has shown it is willing, even eager, to use its economic might to exert political influence over its neighbours.Russia might today be compared with Venezuela or Nigeria – nations that, while not industrial powers, can nevertheless rattle the global economy because they are major energy producers.Russia still, of course, has one of the world’s largest arsenals of nuclear weapons. And it is a global supplier of advanced weaponry with some customers – like Syria – the West cannot abide.The West has little to gain, and much to lose, by a dramatic rupture with Russia. That’s why, perhaps, Western leaders have reacted cautiously, in measured tones, to Putin’s sometimes caustic criticism.Meanwhile, the Kremlin has sent mixed signals about its own intentions.Sometimes, its tone is grating – as when Putin called Britain’s request for the extradition of the only named suspect in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko “stupidity”. In gentler moments, the Kremlin emphasises its role as a partner to the West on matters like the struggle against terror and nuclear proliferation.That’s how Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, described Thursday’s proposal for the US to use a Russian radar station in Azerbaijan as part of its European missile shield.“Our concerns about the potential threat about what will come to Russia will disappear – that really contributes to the atmosphere of mutual trust, security and stability on the continent,” he said.The difficulty comes in deciding whether to listen to Russia’s charm or bluster.Russians themselves struggle to interpret these mixed signals. Alexander Khramchikhin, an expert with Russia’s Institute for Political and Military Analysis, said Putin’s offer was “a clever proposal” that would test Washington’s true intentions in deploying the shield, the Interfax news agency reported.The Russian radar system is fairly close to the Iranian border and directed south. “Turning it in the opposite direction is technically impossible,” he said, according to Interfax. “It cannot threaten Russia because this is virtually our radar.”Moscow would regard rejection of the proposal as proof the missile shield was aimed at Russia, he said.On the other hand, if the Kremlin’s denunciation of the missile defences were motivated by political rather than strategic concerns, the issue may quietly die.Andrei Illarionov, a former top economic adviser to the Kremlin who has become a critic of Putin, told reporters at a press conference on Wednesday that the Russian president’s harsh rhetoric in the leadup to the summit was part of an effort to bait Western leaders into responding in kind.The aim, he said, was to raise Putin’s prestige in advance of parliamentary elections in December and a March presidential vote – and, perhaps, cement support for a long-term Kremlin policy of rolling back democratic reforms.“Russia is conducting a targeted policy of aggravating relations” with the other G-8 nations, Illarionov said, according to Interfax, and thus hoped to “proclaim the West an enemy and mobilise the electorate”.Whether it was Putin’s intention to alarm Russians or not, his warnings about the West have been heard loud and clear at home. One Moscow cab driver nervously asked a foreigner this week: “Does Bush want a nuclear war?”At the same time, many Russians applaud Putin’s tweaking the noses of US and European leaders. An article this week in Komsomolskaya Pravda, a popular tabloid with a nationalist bent, jocularly noted that Putin’s comments “disturbed the entire ‘Western ant hill’”.While Putin struck a proud and defiant posture going into his meetings with Western political leaders this week, he prepared to play gracious host to US and European corporate titans.Following the Heiligendamm meeting, Putin is headed for St. Petersburg where the Kremlin planned to fete Western corporate executives, including the chief executive officers of Royal Dutch Shell, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Siemens and BP PLC