Soviet-controlled SS20 missile that used to be in what is now Czech Republic.

I worry about American policy about Russia. It often feels…outsourced to me. To people whom I can't see or only hear about occasionally. Driven by externals (like START expiring). One of the key people Russian policy is outsourced to is…the Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden. Am I missing something, or do VPs normally make foreign policy? There's something…not quite right about how the policy is being formed. I'm still cringing at Hillary and the gang messing up with Sergei Viktorovich and putting the word "peregruzit'" ("overload") instead of "pereZAgruzit'" (reset) on the red button gag gift. Ah, well, at least we're talking about "reset" and not "nuke".

Still, I feel like we're missing a huge opportunity by not going to the Russians and, as Georgy Arbatov once said to Strobe Talbott when the Soviet Union was collapsing, "We will deprive you of an enemy!". I had little use for Soviet hacks and perestroika liberals, but Arbatov was right, invoking that trick — use unilateral disarming gestures now and then to throw the enemy off balance and perhaps make detente. Of course, the collapse of the USSR was quite the unilateral gesture, and all we seemed to do for the Russians then was give them a lot of expensive "technical assistance projects" they seemed to have to pay for themselves, one way or another.

I can't help thinking that the best position we could be going to with the Russians right now is to say, "Ok, Putvedev, we will pledge not to enlarge NATO at this time as we are in a global economic crisis and we have enough on our plate with the war in Afghanistan". We could pledge not to *push* the membership of George and Ukraine — for now. This costs us nothing, as we have absolutely no intention whatsoever of REALLY helping either Ukraine or Georgia if they are invaded — or even pressured in gas wars – -by Russia. Nothing. So this is a shut-up because you couldn't put-up sort of situation where we can have a win/win, and say magnanimously, "We won't enlarge NATO, but work with us to wind down the war in Afghanistan using your vast experience".

I realize some of my friends are appalled at the idea of not letting anyone who wants to join NATO, and that really, the Russians should let Ryazanskaya oblast join NATO, if not the Yugozapadny rayon of Moscow. But, again, we're not going to be using NATO to help Georgia or Ukraine if they get in a jam, of the kind they've gotten in this year, so let's knock it off. Instead of reciting like parrots what we've said for 60 years to try to contain the Russians, not often successfully, let's say "OK, we're done with NATO for now, your move."

Then we should ask what they will REALLY do on the Iran front. I find it humorous that anyone believes Russia will be helpful on Iran. Of course the Kremlin won't be helpful on Iran. Russia has a long history of cooperating with Iran, and also does so in a sense by proxy through Central Asian countries, which simply have to be friends with Iran because there it is, right on their border, and a customer in a neighbourhood that gets very cold in the winter, needing lots of cheaper gas from nearby countries so it can export its own gas further, and hot if Iran exports its fundamentalists. Russia sort of does and doesn't contain Iran. The Kremlin rants about "Vakhabisty" and such but they allow iran.ru to flourish (who pays for that site, BTW?) and really don't ever say a word about the Iranter's anti-semitic outbursts at the UN. They never vote for the Iranian human rights resolution in the Third Committee. In fact, so contorted is all the thinking about this, that Russia's intimation that it might not sell some anti-missile system to Iran seems like some sort of gesture of peacenicky largesse — so much so, that people forget that their very plan to even sell the thing in the first place betrays the story that they are *not* helping on Iran. No, not really — not so's you'd notice.

But, you say, if Russia in fact is so terrible on Iran, and Iran is so terrible, shouldn't we just add to our missiles bristling in Europe and our alliances instead of subtracting? Well, no, not yet.

I think there's everything to be said for some more fancy footwork and detente-like maneuvering while it's still early in the Obama administration. I think the pledge not to expand NATO is a freebie for us and a disarming gesture for them that they're compelled to match. Throw in an offer to remove the Czech radar stations which we didn't even put in yet, and which the Czechs don't even want, and you have them even more disarmed and off balance.

Add to that a challenge to help with Iran — as if they really did have the good faith to help (they may not). That is, behave 'as if" they will do the right thing and expect it. This Platonic ideal of inducing virtue by emulating it isn't worth a terrible amount, but it does mean that we stop losing the propaganda and diplomatic maneuver war, which we keep looking so lousy at.

A few other things we need to do:

1. Raise human rights in Russia very forcefully — the murder of journalists should be very high on the agenda. Hell, an American journalist, Forbes' Paul Klebnikov, is one of those murdered in the list, and we should be demanding an accounting and further pledges of protection — that starts with more robust U.S. presidential condemnation of these atrocious crimes. Despite having very complicated and dicey negotiations at hand with the Russians, we simply have to speak out. The Russians should expect that that's what we do.

They may bristle and turn around and cook up some sort of "your Indians" gambit the way old human rights equivocacy propagandist Fyodor Burlatsky used to do in the Soviet era but that's ok, we can both pretend to work jointly on our joint mutual human rights problems that are really so…er…similar (I can't think of any journalists murdered in the U.S. for their journalism lately, but I'll work at it). We could both work on racism, however. We could praise the work of Yury Boychenko drafting the compromise Durban II document now precariously in play. Something. But denouncing real human rights crimes that really occur, and without making a moral equivalency (there isn't any), offering to "work together" on mutual human rights issues, we could re-establish some action framework.

2. Take the Russians up seriously on their offer to have new Helsinki talks. The Russians envision this as renegotiating the Final Act on Security and Cooperation in Europe of Helsinki, 1975, only this time, without the human rights baskets — or with very dumbed down baskets. That's why nobody in the U.S. wants to touch it. But if we can get back on the UN Human Rights Council, which can be a very sordid place indeed with its obsession with Israel at the expense of serious human rights problems that have no considerable machinery to address them already, we can get back to OSCE.

We should say that we want serious talks and work toward planning a summit, and let's say in, oh, Ashgabat, in 2011. I'm free-associating here, because gosh, if we stomached making Kazakhstan the chair for 2010, we can have the OSCE summit in the neutral vista of the Era of the New Revival which now has UN conflict-prevention center, and don't forget, Afghanistan is next door. In fact, let's ask Afghanistan to join OSCE! Now there's an idea! And tell the Russians we can't possibly renegotiate the *security* clauses of OSCE unless they are willing to talk serious human rights improvement — like the old days.

So we agree to talk about (but not do for a good long while unless things change) the recurring Russian request to make OSCE a "legal entity" with a "charter"  — something nobody wants to do because that would let the Russians take over as the hegemons of Eurasia without any human rights restraints. Because it's also a political given that NATO is premised on the idea that the ultimate massive human rights crisis is one dealt with military might — of course your mileage may vary on whether that was a good idea with Kosovo, given how the Russians have milked that for all its worth and used it to justify the invasion of Georgia over Southern Ossetia's breakaway aspirations. The Russians want to try their hardest to get the West to bind themselves to a treaty that NATO will never do a Kosovo again; but if the West makes a vow like that, it has to get concessions out of Russia that involve things like addressing the impunity of journalists murder — and addressing their takeover of small republics of Georgia through things like giving everbody Russian passports years ago and provoking trouble.

So here we all are again, having a big U.S-Russian summit, and we still don't get along after all these years. But I think the key to dealing with Russia is to be the sort of social democrats to Leninist socialism that drives Leninists crazy, but which they cannot do a damn thing about. By making the unilateral gestures for peace that don't cost us much and force Russian reciprocity, we might be able to turn the relationship around to more productive channels. There's always reverting to the chilliness of the near-Cold War we've been threatening for the last years if that doesn't work — but it will. The Russians are in a global economic crisis, too.