The Group of Eight's Dinner Date With Putin

There is a nice story doing the rounds about how the West's leaders may show their displeasure at Russia's slide into authoritarianism. U.S. President George W. Bush will boycott the opening banquet at July's Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg. Not wanting to be left out, but too timid to risk giving quite so much offense to President Vladimir Putin, European leaders will leave the table before dessert is served.

It could almost be true. The story is a perfect metaphor for the tangle in which the United States and its partners in the old G7 now find themselves. Most of them are embarrassed by the summit, but some less than others. One or two have flirted with a token gesture of reluctance. No one has said out loud what all -- or maybe most -- of them think: Putin's conspicuous disdain for democracy mocks the values the G8 is pledged to uphold.

So barring too blatant an attempt by the Russians to subvert this month's parliamentary elections in Ukraine, the diplomatic consensus is that Putin's guests must simply turn up and bear it in St. Petersburg. It is too late for a boycott and, in any event, there are too many divisions both within the U.S. administration and between European governments to reach a collective view.

It is not all that long ago that Gerhard Schröder, then German chancellor, and France's Jacques Chirac were cuddling up to Putin in the hope that their new axis would serve as a counterweight to U.S. power. Only last year, Bush himself was greeting the Russian leader at the White House as "my friend Vladimir."

Schr?der has since departed the political stage -- no doubt coincidentally for a lucrative post with Gazprom, Russia's state-owned energy company. Angela Merkel, his successor, is less inclined to bend the knee to the Kremlin. For his part, Bush trumpets the advance of freedom and democracy as a vital U.S. interest. It gets ever more difficult to pretend that Putin might yet turn out to be a sheep in wolf's clothing.

The Russian leader seems unperturbed. The corruption of democratic institutions, tightening Kremlin control over the economy, the crude use of energy as a strategic weapon, suppression of dissent in the media, interference in Ukraine and the Caucasus and a clampdown on nongovernmental organizations are all of an authoritarian piece.

Those who style themselves members of the realist school of foreign policy ask why any of this should be a problem. Western democracies have always had to deal with tyrants, and Putin is at least a measurable advance on his Soviet predecessors.

The West, the argument runs, should be guided only by its interests. The United States needs Putin's help to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions and to collaborate in the war against terrorism. Europe relies on the Putin-controlled Gazprom for one-quarter of its gas supplies. So best be hard-headed: Leave Russia's domestic affairs to the Russians and do the deals that benefit the West.

The trouble with this argument is that it muddles short-term tactical gains with long-term strategic interests. It assumes that the West's interests can be at once cordoned off from Russia's internal politics and somehow aligned with Moscow's foreign policy ambitions.

Putin's desire to suppress democracy in former Soviet republics cannot be neatly separated from his authoritarian rule at home. Russia's reliability as a supplier of oil and gas must be measured against Putin's undisguised efforts to use energy as a weapon against its insufficiently compliant neighbors. Moscow's decision earlier this year to cut gas supplies to Ukraine was a clumsy manifestation of future intent.

None of the above says that Putin's colleagues in the G8 should seek to isolate Russia. What it does demand, to borrow a phrase, is much greater realism in framing the terms of the relationship. Rhetoric about grand strategic partnerships should give way to open acknowledgement of the differences and an unapologetic defense of democratic principles. There is no need for animus; there is an obligation on Western governments to uphold their values. That is where their interests lie.

The G7 nations should be clear that they will not be complicit in the re-establishment of Russian hegemony over its neighbors; or accept that the former Soviet republics of Central Asia are off-limits to the spread of democracy and the rule of law.

A bipartisan panel convened by the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations got it right when it said last week that the United States "should cede no veto or undue deference to Russia over American relations with the states of the Russian periphery." Quite the reverse. American, and for that matter European, interests lie in supporting nations such as Ukraine and Georgia in their efforts to join a wider international community.

Likewise, Europe's reliance on Russian gas does not mean its interests are aligned with those of Moscow. The continent's energy security requires transparency, competition, diversity of supply, flexible networks and, yes, solidarity among consumers.

Putin's objective is to secure long-term contracts with West European consumers that tighten Gazprom's control of supply and distribution and forestall European efforts to secure alternative supplies. Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, has urged the European Union to forge a new energy pact with Moscow. What he has omitted to say is how these wholly divergent objectives might be reconciled.

The mistake the G7 nations too often make is to assume that Russia holds all the cards. It is true that Russia's energy resources have transformed its strategic position. But what Putin wants above all is the prestige that comes with being treated as the leader of a great power. More prosaically, Russia needs to sell the gas as much as Europe needs to buy it. It also needs Western money and expertise to tap new reserves.

As for Iran's quest for a nuclear capability, for all that the Kremlin clearly enjoys playing on both sides of the board, Russia's interests would scarcely be served by putting the bomb into the hands of a radical Islamist regime on its own borders.

The G7 leaders need not go hungry in St. Petersburg. There is even less reason to embrace their host. Bush should enjoy his dinner and the Europeans their dessert. Then they should say what they think about the carving up of Russian democracy. You never know, faced with unaccustomed fortitude rather than the usual feebleness, Putin might just listen.

Philip Stephens is a columnist at the Financial Times, where this piece first appeared.