A pivotal meeting for Russia, US

The direct telephone line between the Kremlin and the White House was installed to head off Armageddon, but after the Sept. 11 attacks, it was used for a less ominous purpose.

Russian President Vladimir Putin called to say his country was suspending military movements to avoid confusion. "We are standing down. We want to help," is what Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, recalls Mr. Putin telling her boss. To Ms. Rice, it was "a crystallizing moment for the end of the cold war."

Yet, as significant as the moment may have been for US-Russia relations, the legacy of seeing the other as the enemy cannot be overcome so easily. Experts in both countries say the old foes are not so far ahead of where they were a decade ago, after the Soviet Union collapsed. They say it will take a long process to forge ties of trust.

As a summit meeting begins today that will take Putin to the White House and to the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas, a chasm lies between the hope for better ties and the reality of tough issues to settle.

Some analysts such as Rice - herself a US-Russian-relations expert - are heralding the dawn of a new era of peaceful, mutually beneficial, and "normal" relations. "There's never been a time when US-Russian interests have been so aligned as right now," says Robert Strauss, a former US ambassador to Moscow.

But for others, "normal" is not a word that is likely to apply for years to come. "The direction [of relations] is promising, but Russia is not our ally," says Michael McFaul, a Stanford University professor with a new book entitled, "Russia's Unfinished Revolution." "If you look at the list of potential areas of conflict" - missile defense, NATO, Iran, Iraq, the US presence in central Asia - "you see some very serious issues that have yet to be resolved," he says.

The relationship is not normal, says Fiona Hill, a Russia expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, because "we're still in the mode of thinking about Russia through the security prism." As long as the relationship is dominated by such issues as nuclear proliferation and missile defense, "we're still at the point of mopping up residual issues of the cold war."

To be sure, a shift from traditional security positions and issues is accelerating in the wake of Sept. 11. For example, the benefits Russia might reap from a cooperative role in the war on terrorism have prompted Putin to stand down from old positions on NATO expansion. Determined to see potential benefit rather than a threat in heightened US interest in central Asia, Putin will spend a day in Houston meeting with business leaders as a step toward developing Russia's energy potential.

Part of the skepticism toward the current euphoria over US-Russia relations is born of a feeling that "we've been here before." That sentiment is especially keen in Russia.

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