The Wider US-Russian Issue Over Missile Defence.

President Bush on June 4 began an eight-day European tour which took him the Czech Republic, Germany for the June 6-8 G8 summit, Poland, Italy, Albania and Bulgaria. He was armed with feel-good initiatives to appeal to a European audience - and provide an antidote to the thornier issues of Iran, Kosovo and US-Russian tensions over a US missile defence system to be installed in Poland and the Czech Republic.

By far Bush's most awkward G8 encounter was with Russian President Vladimir Putin, amid the most serious deterioration in US-Russian relations since the Soviet era. Moscow is bitterly opposed to US plans to locate part of its proposed ballistic missile defence shield in central Europe and the former cold-war rivals are also at odds over US-backed plans to grant independence to Kosovo, the UN-administered Serbian province. Putin has aimed a series of rhetorical blasts at the US of late but Bush said: "The cold war is over. We don't agree with Russia all the time but, nevertheless, I view them as a friendly nation, not a hostile nation".

While Bush's language was placatory, his itinerary on June 4-11 was to give a clear message that Washington will not be shaken from its objectives. His stops in the Czech Republic and Poland were dominated by talks about the missile shield, while the Albanian and Bulgarian legs focused on Kosovo and NATO enlargement. Simon Serfaty, global security chair at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said: "[Bush's] message is that we're going to do what we're going to do".

Putin on June 7 seized the initiative by suggesting instead a joint plan to base part of the system at a former Soviet radar station in Azerbaijan. He took Bush by surprise, saying he had secured agreement from Azerbaijan to use the radar as part of a collaborative system to protect Europe from incoming missiles. He said if the US accepted the proposal, he would not have to carry out his threat to re-target Russian missiles against Europe, telling reporters: "This will make it unnecessary for us to place our offensive complexes along the border with Europe". He was standing beside Bush, who called the proposal "interesting" and said both sides had agreed to engage in "strategic dialogue" to "share ideas" over missile defence during Putin's visit to the US in early July.

As the G8 summit at Heiligendamm drew to a close, Putin on June 8 told reporters the US should think about locating anti-missile interceptors in Turkey or even in Iraq, adding: "You could put them in the south. I'm talking hypothetically, but this could be allies of the US in NATO. Let's say Turkey, or even Iraq".

US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said this showed Russian willingness to engage in "real co-operation" on missile defence. But the two sides were at odds over the potential role of the Azerbaijan radar. Hadley only said Azerbaijan could make a "contribution" to the broader system. Pavel Felgenhauer, a defence analyst in Moscow, said the Gabala radar station involved in the proposal was not a suitable substitute for the Czech Republic as it was too close to Iran - one of the "rogue states" against which Washington says its missile shield is designed to defend. It was also too far from the planned US interceptor base in Poland to be viable. Felgenhauer said: "The Pentagon won't want this at all. The White House will not reject it out of hand, but I don't forecast any agreement".

US officials sought to portray the proposal as a breakthrough in efforts to secure Moscow's backing for its missile shield and a first step towards serious negotiations about co-operation. But it appeared highly unlikely that Washington would sacrifice its Czech base or put a key part of its missile shield in the hands of a former Soviet state. Putin argues that US anti-missile equipment in Central Europe would turn the continent into a "tinderbox". Washington says its proposed facilities are too close to Russia and too limited to protect against its ballistic missiles.

Some of the drama had been removed by the previous week's announcement that Putin will travel to the US for more talks in July. The FT quoted Stephen Sestanovich, a Russia expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, as saying: "There's recognition that there has to be a more in-depth attempt to address problems in the relationship".

The US says the shield - which would involve installing 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic - is aimed at protecting the US and Europe and countering missiles from Iran, North Korea and other "rogue states".

According to a transcript of an interview with reporters posted on the Wall Street Journal's website, Putin previously said: "It's obvious that if part of the strategic nuclear potential of the US is located in Europe, which in the opinion of our military experts represents a threat, we will take the corresponding steps in response. Of course we will have to get new targets in Europe". While senior Russian generals have previously made the same threat, this was the first time Putin endorsed such a move publicly.

Putin heralded a return to the Cold War era when the US and Russia both had missiles aimed at each other. Putin hit the US plans, saying they were unilateral, and had not received formal EU approval, saying: "We are told that it's for the defence of Europe. Has anyone asked Europe? Was there some kind of general European decision or even a decision in NATO, even for appearance's sake? No. They didn't want to ask anyone".

Tensions between Washington and Moscow have been on a spiral since Putin lambasted US foreign policy in a February speech in Munich to defence policy elites, including US Defence Secretary Gates.

Russia has not been swayed by a series of meetings with senior US officials, including Gates. Gates in April visited Moscow in an effort to reassure Putin the system was not directed at Russia, and to reduce fears in Europe about a growing rift with Moscow over the shield. Secretary of State Rice has tried to convince the Russians that the system is aimed at rogue missile threats, especially from Iran and North Korea.

Russia argues that Iran does not pose a threat, saying: "How is it being explained? That it is necessary to defend oneself against Iranian missiles. Iran does not have missiles with a range of 5,000-8,000 km...It's a defence against something which does not exist. It would be funny if it was not so sad". Putin said Russia was trying "to be heard", adding he did not rule out the possibility of the US reversing its decision.

The following is an editorial by the Financial Times of June 5: "No one else on the world stage today is quite like Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. The Russian president has become a past master at upstaging international meetings, sowing dissension in the west's ranks and upping the stakes in an ever more acrimonious contest with the US.

"The latest example is his outrageous threat, issued just ahead of this week's G8 summit, to target Europe with Russia's nuclear arsenal if the US's fledgling missile defence system is ever placed on European soil. This is also the man who labels himself, with formidable chutzpah, the world's only 'pure democrat' and complains: 'After the death of Mahatma Gandhi there's nobody to talk to'.

"Mr Putin should beware. His tactical mastery may help him outmanoeuvre the west on a day-to-day basis, but the enduring legacy of his cunning is likely to be a Europe and US that deeply distrust Russia.

"Take the furious controversy over the missile defence system, a programme that sceptics allege will never work and which even true believers say would have no impact on any state with more than a handful of nuclear weapons. After what it sees as the humiliations of the 1990s, and ahead of an electoral season, Russia is in no mood to accept what it sees as a US foothold in Poland and the Czech Republic.

"Mr Putin's lieutenants have brushed aside US offers to co-operate on missile defence. Instead Russia threatens to pull out of two landmark arms control treaties and has made ever more belligerent noises towards the west. Such a course of action is not just out of proportion and wrong; it is also counterproductive.

"Although Germany's Social Democrats have criticised the US for its role in the dispute, the German electorate is showing signs of turning against Mr Putin's bullying behaviour. And while public opinion in Poland and the Czech Republic is against the missile defence bases, largely because of fears provoked by Russia's threats, the two countries are likely to become more, not less, anti-Russian in feeling.

"The US could take more steps to defuse the dispute, not least discussing whether it could cap the number of interceptors at the Polish site. But the main responsibility rests with Mr Putin. Everything he has done so far this year has been to make missile defence a zero sum game from which only one side can emerge the winner. That is not the approach of a statesman. It is time for Mr Putin to overcome his country's resentment of the west and demonstrate that his Russia is a partner, not an old, aggrieved foe".

The Boston Globe on June 5 said: "...Putin's talk about targeting European sites with 'ballistic or cruise missiles or maybe a completely new system' was empty of meaning; missiles currently in Russia's arsenal can already be directed at new targets within minutes. Nevertheless, Putin's loose missile talk does fit into a pattern of belligerent pronouncements not just from Moscow but also from Washington.

"When it comes to Bush's insistence on siting 10 antimissile interceptors in Poland and a radar unit in the Czech Republic, the revival of Cold War rhetoric about a balance of terror becomes particularly gratuitous - an avoidable conflict rooted in deliberate deceptions on both sides of the vanished Iron Curtain.

The Globe, however, added: "Iran may not now have missiles with sufficient range to reach Europe, much less the United States, but the Islamic Republic has been extending the reach of its missiles and could conceivably develop ones capable of hitting Europe by the time components of a US missile defense are deployed on Polish and Czech soil. Putin also was wrong about why Bush wants to extend to Europe the most ambitious version of US missile defense - a system designed to knock out intercontinental ballistic missiles with so-called kill vehicles outside earth's atmosphere. Putin was being overly Machiavellian when he hinted that the hidden purpose of Bush's antimissile deployments in Europe was to 'push us to make reciprocal steps in order to avoid further closeness of Russia and Europe'. And he was being overly paranoid when he said a situation in which one side has an antimissile system and the other side does not 'creates the illusion of being protected and increases the possibility of unleashing a nuclear conflict'.

"What Putin ought to realize - and what his nuclear specialists can tell him - is that the missile defense system Bush is deploying has a fatal flaw: Its sensors cannot discriminate between live warheads in space and easily contrived decoys. A system that doesn't work cannot be a threat to Russia, much less a shield against Iran. This is a system that has benefited only defense contractors and weakened only the American taxpayer".