WASHINGTON — Other than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, few foreign policy initiatives have gotten more diplomatic attention from the Bush administration recently than thawing its increasingly chilly relationship with Russia.
Twice over the last 10 months, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates have been sent on joint missions to convince the Kremlin that it should cooperate on a variety of fronts, including missile defense and nuclear proliferation.
But the conflict in Georgia this week has left efforts to engage Russia in disarray, and there are increasing signs that administration hard-liners are using the crisis to reassert their view that Moscow should be isolated.
Vice President Dick Cheney's declaration Saturday that "Russian aggression must not go unanswered" was seen by some experts as the first salvo of what could be a new battle over administration policy.
Some conservatives believe the administration has not been tough enough with Russia. Frederick W. Kagan, a neoconservative scholar who has advised the Bush administration, praised Cheney's comment and faulted President Bush for failing to outline to the Russians the consequences of pressing their assault.
Kagan and others are marshaling arguments for the policy deliberations already underway over how to deal with the aftermath of the Georgian crisis.
Some Bush administration officials are likely to press for kicking Russia out of the Group of 8, which includes the seven major industrial countries and Russia, and blocking its admission to the World Trade Organization. The U.S. also could pledge to rebuild the Georgian military and cut Russia out of discussion over the missile defense system in Europe.
A tougher stance would represent a significant shift for the administration, which recast its approach to Russia in Bush's second term. During Rice and Gates' March visit to Moscow, they carried a personal letter from Bush to then-President Vladimir Putin, now prime minister, that tried to strike a conciliatory tone on a variety of issues.
That was a contrast from the opening months of the Bush administration, when advisors pushed the White House to unilaterally pull out of arms control treaties and propose American military bases in former Warsaw Pact countries.
