...In the wake of criticism from President Vladimir V. Putin and his inner
circle of political 
advisers and generals, there is a growing  acknowledgment among officials in
Washington that 
the United States has not responded as rapidly or eloquently as it might
have to a widespread sense of grievance in Russia....

New York Times
March 6, 2007
U.S. Moves to Soothe Growing Russian Resentment
By THOM SHANKER and HELENE COOPER

WASHINGTON, March 5 - The Bush administration has  decided to reach out more
often and more 
intensively to Russia at a time when the  leadership in Moscow is harshly
criticizing 
American policy and some scholars say the United States has not sufficiently
tended to an important relationship.

Plans by the United States to base elements of a  missile defense system in
Eastern Europe, as well 
as Washington's support for expanding NATO, have  compounded a sense of
resentment within a Russian 
leadership emboldened by a flood of petrodollars.

In the wake of criticism from President Vladimir V. Putin and his inner
circle of political 
advisers and generals, there is a growing  acknowledgment among officials in
Washington that 
the United States has not responded as rapidly or eloquently as it might
have to a widespread sense of grievance in Russia.

This frustration grows from a view, broadly held in the Kremlin and among
the Russian people, that 
the Russian leadership has accommodated many of Washington's interests in
the years since the 
Soviet Union fell but that Washington has not reciprocated.

Senior administration officials said their initiative called for engaging
Russian leaders in 
private discussions to illustrate that the United States was putting extra
effort into nurturing 
the relationship and that Russia deserved a more thorough dialogue on
American foreign policy and national security plans.

A senior administration official involved in developing the strategy said
that under the 
program, "we'll have more consultation and we'll do it more extensively and
more intensively, so 
that there is a good understanding of each other's views."

"That is not to say that every objection and concern has to be accommodated
or that they have 
some kind of veto over our program," the official said. "What it does say is
that we should be 
willing to sit down, both Russia and the United States, in a real dialogue,
and have a real 
dialogue where we try and address the interests and concerns of both sides."

Those mutual interests, administration officials said, include halting the
nuclear ambitions of 
Iran and North Korea, cooperating on counterterrorism and counternarcotics
efforts and 
on building missile defense, which American officials argue should interest
Russia, which is 
within striking distance of both Iran and North Korea.

Senior administration officials said the initiative would also involve a
more intensive 
dialogue between the Russian and American militaries, a forum that might
lend itself to 
fuller technical exchanges about Washington's plans for missile defense.

Administration officials have said they will stand their ground in defending
the United States 
against the substance of the Russian critique. In particular, the officials
say, Russian threats 
will not halt Washington's plans to place elements of a missile defense
system in Poland 
and the Czech Republic, nor diminish Washington's support of NATO expansion.

The stunning directness of Moscow's recent public complaints is viewed as
undermining United 
States-Russia relations. Equally worrisome to the administration is that the
harsh tone of the 
Kremlin's comments has greatly troubled European allies caught in between,
especially in former 
Soviet client states in Eastern Europe that later joined NATO.

The new round of verbal attacks from Russia beganFeb. 10 in Munich, when Mr.
Putin used a keynote 
address at a security conference to accuse the United States of overstepping
its borders to 
impose its will on the world through the unilateral application of military
power. He 
criticized the American policies on missile defense and NATO expansion.

Some analysts said initially that the speech had been intended for a Russian
domestic audience. 
But there now is a growing sense among Russia experts that the tough
language was specifically 
aimed at the United States and the NATO allies.

"We weren't paying attention. We were distracted, busy, with other problems
in the world, in 
particular Iraq," said Michael A. McFaul, a professor at Stanford University
who is a Russia 
scholar. "The administration is now put in a position of playing defense, as
we are finally 
seeing the international consequences of the rather dramatic internal
transformation inside 
Russia with the erosion of democracy, a new ruling class, a massive transfer
of property 
rights from so-called oligarchs to, basically, friends of Putin, most of
whom are from the old K.G.B."

Senior administration officials said the new effort to reach out to Russia
already had been 
put into action, and included Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's
consultation with her Russian 
counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov, during meetings in Berlin on
Feb. 21 and 22 about 
whether Russia had the appetite to pursue a second Security Council
resolution for sanctions against Iran.

The Berlin meetings were intended in large part to show Russia that the Bush
administration was 
consulting with Moscow before its diplomatic initiatives.

Ms. Rice and Mr. Lavrov have a peppery relationship. While the two have met
often to 
discuss Iran, most of the sessions have been in official formats including
the five permanent 
members of the Security Council and Germany, in contrast to the more ad hoc
Berlin session with 
Mr. Lavrov and counterparts from Germany and the European Union.

Ms. Rice's meetings with Mr. Lavrov were followed in the same week by a
visit to Moscow by Stephen 
J. Hadley, the national security adviser. Although Mr. Hadley's trip was
organized before the remarks by Russian officials, he used his 
visit to offer great detail about the administration's agenda, including
plans for missile defense.

Mr. Hadley also gave a full description of a pending decision by the United
States to build a 
new generation of nuclear warheads, according to American and Russian
officials. Mr. Hadley 
offered those comments even before the Russians asked about the warhead
program in that meeting.

NATO diplomats have also expressed frustration at Russia's words of shock
over proposals for basing 
missile interceptors in Poland and radar in the Czech Republic, and they
produced lists of 
sessions in which officials from Moscow were briefed on the antimissile
effort in NATO-Russia 
Council sessions and in bilateral talks.

Russian officials complain that those meetings were not two-way
consultations about American 
plans but one-way notifications at which their concerns were not weighed.

The United States needs Russia if it is to succeed in its quest of
ratcheting up the 
pressure at the Security Council to block Iran's nuclear ambitions.

The first Security Council resolution - passed Dec. 23 - took four months to
complete, partly 
because Russia balked at the much tougher package of economic sanctions that
the Bush administration sought.

Moscow also balked over sanctions against a nuclear power plant that Russia
is building in Bushehr, in southern Iran.