Word: putin
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...Putin is only marginally more experienced as a diplomat than Bush. For the Russian leader--whose key achievement has been to begin pulling his country out of an inferiority complex 10 years in the making--the meeting itself is the message. Securing quality time with a U.S. President signals that Russia remains a "great power" --if only because it retains its Soviet nuclear arsenal. Moscow lobbied hard for the meeting and wasn't pleased that Washington was slow to agree. Russian officials took note of every dismissive remark the Bushies made about Russia and were quick to point out that...
When the Bush team took power, so intense was the desire for a missile shield that the only question seemed to be, Should we tear up the ABM treaty now or wait and do it in Putin's face? Five months later, officials gush about how "constructive" Putin has been on missile defense. As Europe's opposition stiffened, a meeting with Putin became a priority. "There was nothing to be gained by keeping Russia at a distance," says an aide. "We're more likely to work out our differences if we build up a decent relationship...
...Bush-Putin meeting is not expected to produce any grand agreements. Bush will come armed with loosely worded proposals for cooperation on missile defense and Russian membership in the World Trade Organization. But there will be little detail, and with the two-hour meeting eaten up by niceties and translation time, no deal is likely. But a deal isn't the point. What Bush is doing is setting a new tone for Europe. Five months into his term, it's time to make a better impression...
...politics are local for Vladimir Putin. For a few hours in Ljubljana this weekend he will be a world leader. He will look diffident and dignified in photo ops, engagingly youthful, speaking confidently and with apparent sincerity. Then he will go home to a country whose population once again declined by a quarter of a million people in the first three months of this year, whose infrastructure is on the verge of collapse and whose economy is crippled by corruption and bureaucracy. But while Bush and Putin are in their Slovenian castle, the Russian people will forget about their...
Russia's ego certainly needs boosting. The only resemblance between Putin-Bush and the encounter between John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev in 1961 will be the month--both being June meetings. The Soviet leader who went to Vienna in 1961 presided over a dynamic, aggressively self-confident empire that was at the height of its powers; today Russia's decline is far from over. Putin is a recently retired civil servant...