NATO's message to Russia

If that is not cause for alarm, what is? And this is at the time when more Russians travel abroad, surf the Web, and have unimpeded access to the world of ideas than ever before.

By welcoming Putin to Bucharest, NATO leaders should welcome the Russian people and engage them with a candid and clear message.

They should reiterate NATO's openness to cooperation with Russia and lack of ill will toward it. They should stress that NATO's enlargement is not guided from its headquarters in Brussels, but is driven by the nations aspiring to join the alliance. They should also be clear that this is an alliance that rests on shared values, but that no nation is forced to embrace them or join NATO if it lacks the will to do so.

Russia can devise its own form of government, but its current government's strict balance-of-power approach to foreign affairs is likely to make it less, not more, compatible with the rest of Europe and the United States.

Alliance leaders also ought to remind the people of Russia that Putin's record in the past eight years in office looks different from outside Russia than from inside.

True, the Russian economy has grown rapidly, but on average Russian males are still not expected to live past 60.

True, Putin has reined in the handful of oligarchs who ran Russia under his predecessor, but Russia ranked 143rd in Transparency International's global Corruption Perceptions Index in 2007.

True, Russia has flexed its military muscle and engaged in pipeline diplomacy to remind Europe that it holds keys to its gas supply. Has this made Russia more feared in Europe and raised concerns about its reliability as a supplier? Yes. But has it made Russia more popular, respected, or trusted? No.

The Russian people need to be told over the heads of their leaders that they are free to decide their own fate without foreign interference and can devise their own form of democracy or autocracy as they see fit. But in deciding their own fate, they should have all facts at their disposal and should assess their own record and that of their neighbors and partners in Europe on that basis.

The sooner they are presented with those facts the better are the prospects for a meaningful dialogue between NATO and Russia about their differences and challenges. By shaping their overdue response to Putin, NATO leaders will begin to tackle the question of what to do with Russia.

A clear message to Putin and, more important, to the people of Russia about NATO's view of them and their country will be a big step toward making the Bucharest summit a success.

• Eugene Rumer is a senior fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, a policy research and strategic gaming organization within the National Defense University. His views are his own.

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