RUSSIA is much too powerful and ambitious to be kept in a straitjacket for long. It will not accept a position of subservience. True, the breakup of the Soviet Union was a traumatic experience for the Russians who were then subjected to the chaos and corruption of the Yeltsin presidency. When Vladimir Putin came to power some seven years ago, Russia was literally down in the dumps.

In the past seven years, however, this former KGB officer has proven to be a strong and forceful leader, one who has brought about a remarkable transformation. Under his watch, the country’s coffers are bulging with billions earned from the sale of oil and gas. This has resulted in impressive growth rates for the economy. Moscow has also succeeded in enforcing its writ in the outlying regions. All this has given the leadership the confidence and desire to regain some of its lost glory.

To this end, Putin has been engaged in an assiduous effort to stamp his authority on the country while setting new parameters in relations with major powers, in particular the United States, which is in tune with the sentiments of his people. This reflects his strong belief that relations between Moscow and Washington must be based on sovereign equality.

In this endeavour, it was inevitable that differences would emerge between Russia and the United States. The latest spat between them began with Moscow’s test-firing of the RS-24 missile, capable of carrying 10 warheads, from the Plesetsk base in May. It was claimed that it could overcome any missile shield developed so far by the US.

This test took place soon after the US announced its plans to deploy 10 interceptor missiles in Poland, supplemented by a radar system in the Czech Republic. This “provocative action” was taken on the plea that Europe had to be protected against long-range missile attacks from Iran and North Korea. The Russians were, however, not impressed by this rationale and, therefore, not willing to let the Americans get away with what they believed to be a violation of the 1972 ABM treaty.

It was in the backdrop of this air of confrontation that Putin and George Bush met on the sidelines of the recent G8 summit in Germany in a bid to rescue their relations which were at a post Cold-War low. Putin surprised his interlocutors by not focusing on the missile issue per se, but calling for a joint Russia-US base in Azerbaijan to detect missile attacks. He argued that this facility could cover all of Europe rather than just a part of it.

While indicating that the base would ease Russian concerns, he warned that if Washington pushed ahead with its plan to deploy the missile system, Russia would be constrained to revert to targeting its missiles at Europe, as it did during the Cold War. The Americans were caught off guard and were constrained to admit that Putin’s proposal was “interesting”, and worthy of examination by their experts. The dispute over the missile shield is representative of the current tensions between the two leaders.

When they had met for the first time some six years ago, Bush’s words about him indicated that he was impressed with Putin. The Russian leader, too, felt that his country could derive some advantage from being helpful to the US and, therefore, assisted it in gaining access to air bases in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan — a move that was important in the context of the US invasion of Afghanistan.

The Bush administration, however, mistook Putin’s action as a sign of Russia’s weakness and opted to ring its old adversary by a string of bases in virtually all the former Warsaw Pact countries.

Russia was not amused by these actions. Moscow made it clear that while it did not wish to have a rancorous relationship with Washington, it would staunchly defend its interests. The Bush administration, too, has echoed similar sentiments, with its officials expressing the hope that when the two leaders meet in July in Texas, they may be able to rekindle some of the warmth of earlier times.

Putin remains deeply concerned at the US-inspired Nato push into his country’s traditional sphere of influence. This was again made clear during the recent visit to Moscow by Nato Secretary-General Jaap De Hoop Scheffer who was told by both President Putin and his foreign minister that while the two sides had “gone from a period of confrontation to cooperation”, many problems still need to be resolved. Hopefully, Putin’s offer of the joint use of a monitoring base in Azerbaijan will ease some of the tension between them and become the basis for their renewed cooperation.

But serious differences continue to divide Moscow and Washington. Russia does not want to enter another arms race with the US, nor does it favour the resumption of the superpower confrontation of the past. Bush himself seemed to admit this when he remarked after his meeting with Putin that “Russia is not a threat. They are not something that we ought to be hyperventilating about.”

But with a trillion-dollar economy, the world’s largest oil and gas industry and control over a significant fraction of the globe’s strategic metals (it also possesses the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear weapons and highly advanced missiles), Moscow has shown that it is prepared to use its economic might to exert political influence on its neighbours.

Putin appreciates his people’s aspirations and reflects these in his policy pronouncements, especially those relating to the US and Nato. Recently, Andrei Illarionov, a former Kremlin advisor who is now a critic of Putin, told the media that the Russian president’s harsh rhetoric prior to the summit was part of an effort to bait western leaders into responding in a similar fashion. This was also done to raise Putin’s prestige before the primary elections and the March 2008 presidential polls because his aggressive rhetoric satisfies an important psychological need of the Russians — namely resurgence of national pride.

A number of well-known scholars have argued that Russia’s experience in the 1990s bore many resemblances to what Germany went through in the 1920s. In their view, the traumatic economic events of the 1990s would prove as harmful to Russian democracy as hyperinflation had been for German democracy 70 years earlier.

In her paper titled “Weimar on the Volga”, scholar Brigitte Granville has argued that “by discrediting free markets, the rule of law, parliamentary institutions and international economic openness, the Weimar inflation proved the perfect seed-bed for international socialism. In Russia, too, the immediate social costs of high inflation may have grave political consequences in the medium term.”

In the view of many scholars, Putin’s policies confirm the fears expressed by them earlier. They are particularly worried about Putin’s seeming contempt for the rule of law and his harsh attack on civil society. On the economic front, too, the West is worried about Putin’s efforts to bring under state control many of the energy and power entities that had been secured by individuals or groups during the Yeltsin years.

The media, too, has suffered under Putin, and there has been a discernible reduction in the freedom of the press. As regards the outlying provinces, Moscow has replaced the direct election of regional governors with a centralised presidential nomination system.

The result of all this is that many in Europe are expressing the fear that a new Cold War may be emerging between Russia and the West. Admittedly, the list of major differences between them are many, with the US invasion of Iraq, Russian assistance to Iran, US missile defence in Eastern Europe and Russian pipelines in Kazakhstan only amongst the better known ones.

The future of Kosovo, that appears determined to seek separation under a draft UN plan, has become another irritant. Moscow has, however, threatened to veto it in the Security Council. Another lingering disagreement relates to the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, a Cold War era relic.

Nevertheless, there is no denying the fact that Russia and US have many overlapping concerns whether these constitute the war on terror or the spread of nuclear weapons. As the legendary Kremlinologist, George Kennan, has lamented, the expansion of Nato was “the biggest foreign policy mistake of the post-Cold War period.” He has warned of the risks of ignoring historic Russian concerns about being isolated and surrounded by enemies.

The next decade will be crucial for ties between Russia and the West. Isolating Russia or ignoring its interests would only strengthen the hands of obscurantist and nationalist forces. This would be a negative development for the entire world, more so for the US. Russia can only be ignored at the peril of the West. While Putin is not looking for another ideological confrontation or a military arms race, Russia might not easily give in on sensitive matters that impinge on its national security.

Washington needs to appreciate Moscow’s sensitivities and accord it the respect due to a power of the size and potential of Russia. At the same time, Russia must understand that it is only through a strengthening of democratic institutions and the establishment of a strong civil society that it can play its rightful role.

The writer is a former ambassador.