A spy scandal erupts, diplomats are expelled, Russian troops fly into Eastern Europe, Moscow politicians spit vituperative rhetoric: No wonder many Americans fear the Cold War is returning.


Viewed from Moscow, it is indeed clear that a new Russian foreign policy is evolving, more assertive and quicker to claim a right to interfere in neighboring states. The idea of a trouble-free partnership with the United States has been all but discarded, replaced by suspicion of U.S. motives and a pugnacious and often insecure insistence on standing up for Russia's national interests.


But the emerging policy and new tensions differ markedly from the global expansionism and bipolar hostility of Soviet days -- and from the aggressive imperialism of tsarist times. Policy-making, as in Washington, is now marked by conflicting tendencies, with fear of foreign entanglements and the reality of empty pocketbooks mixing with bruised pride and superpower dreams.


"I've been saying for more than a year that a certain new stage is inevitable," said Vladimir Kozhemyakin, a former government adviser and now a member of parliament. "People feel not anti-Americanism, but a certain desire to prove that the country is independent, is great, has its own policy.


"This is something that Americans should treat as natural and inevitable and not endangering the relationship," he said. "But I wouldn't say the Russian bear is rising. There's no strength left in the bear."


Many Russians urge Washington to respond with understanding to Moscow's efforts to establish a new identity on the world stage, so that Russia will not be pushed further toward nationalism and resentment. At the same time, many of Russia's neighbors urge Western firmness so that Mos-cow does not think it can interfere in their affairs.


For the most part, Russians have reacted with amusement or surprise to Washington's anger at the uncovering of an alleged spy for Russia high in the CIA hierarchy. Sergei Rogov, a national security expert here, said that Aldrich Ames' alleged crime -- betraying American spies to Russian authorities -- shows by its nature that both nations play the espionage game.


But Rogov said that calls to cut off aid to Russia and Western suspicion of Russian peacekeeping in Bosnia show how little substance has been addedto the rhetoric of "partnership" between the former enemies. The notion of partnership has been undermined by U.S. failure to build practical mechanisms of cooperation, Rogov said, and by Russian envy and resentment.


"In Russia, a very strong backlash is already in full swing," he said. "The grand design of partnership may totally fail."


The new trends of Russian policy have been clear at least since early November, when the Kremlin adopted a new military doctrine sanctioning the use of Russian troops in other former Soviet republics.


The election on Dec. 12, in which ultranationalists led by Vladimir Zhirinovsky topped the party-list voting, accelerated the move toward assertiveness. Zhirinovsky promised to expand Russia's borders -- albeit by economic pressure rather than military force -- and to protect the millions of ethnic Russians living in the "near abroad."


Less than three months later, much of Zhirinovsky's rhetoric is official Russian policy, in many cases embraced by centrists and reformers alike. President Boris Yeltsin, in his state-of-the-union speech Thursday, called the fate of ethnic Russians in other countries "our national affair."


Konstantin Zatulin, chairman of parliament's committee on the so-called "near abroad," says Yeltsin's statement did not go far enough.


"Not only the Russians' fate but the fate of all Russian-speakers and their economic, social, political and cultural space is our concern," said Zatulin, who is considered a centrist in the new parliament. "Our task is not in the reduction of those spaces, but in their expansion."


Zatulin said he considers "empire" a positive word, implying peace and equal treatment of all citizens. He said he rejects the use of force to expand Russia's influence, but added that other methods exist.


In recent months, Moscow has backed up the rhetoric with tough economic action. Landlocked countries such as Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, for example, have found Russia blocking their access to oil-export pipelines unless they fork over bigger stakes of their own oil fields.


But during the same period, Moscow has shown itself a long way from a single-minded rush to restore its lost empire. When a Russian nationalist was elected president of the Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula with a Russian-speaking majority, there was no surge of emotion within parliament here to bring the region back into the Russian fold.


Similarly, the lower house of parliament almost unanimously opposed a Russian-Georgian friendship treaty, even though the pact would give Russia virtual carte blanche to establish military bases on Georgian soil. And when the government was on the verge of an agreement with Belarus to allow that neighboring country to use the ruble as its currency, many politicians in Russia opposed it.


In each case, Russian politicians were not motivated by sensitivity toward their neighbors' feelings, but by an unwillingness to assume other nations' burdens at a time of great hardship at home. No matter how nationalistic, most politicians here are more concerned with their voters' unpaid salaries and threatened jobs than with Russia's strategic interests.


In this exhausted nation, there is little will to pick a fight with those neighboring states, let alone with the United States, Kozhemyakin said. "The strength doesn't exist," he said, "but the desire doesn't exist either."





Fred Hiatt is co-chief of The Washington Post's Moscow bureau. He wrote this for the Post.