Presidents Bush and Putin have departed from Slovenia having, by all accounts, begun to build a good personal relationship. They have agreed to meet again in Washington, Moscow, Shanghai and Genoa and it is in the interest of all of humanity that they continue down the road to friendship. Individually or separately the United States and Russia have the nuclear potential to destroy the planet several times over. Any progress towards reducing these frightening capabilities is to be welcomed and the building of a personal friendship between the two leaders can be an important factor in that process.
The Bush-Putin chemistry will be of a different order from that seen in the past when Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin's meetings dissolved into laughter. In the first instance Mr Putin does not laugh. He rarely, if ever, smiles. The balance of forces has also changed since the Clinton-Yeltsin days. The United States remains economically far stronger than Russia and its weapons, nuclear and conventional, are therefore in a better state of readiness. But Russia entered the Ljubljana summit in a stronger position than on any occasion since the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991. Mr Putin came to Slovenia from Shanghai having formed an alliance with China and four central Asian states. The "Shanghai Six" ended their meeting with an agreement that the 1972 Anti-Ballistic-Missile treaty (ABM) was "the cornerstone of global stability and disarmament".
Mr Bush regards the treaty, which stands between the United States and its proposed National Missile Defence (NMD) system, as an outdated relic of the Cold War. But while Mr Putin came to Ljubljana with the backing of China on this key issue, Mr Bush arrived there having attended a summit in Brussels of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation at which the alliance sharply divided. President Chirac of France and Chancellor Schroder of Germany were in no way as supportive of Mr Bush as President Jiang Zemin of China was of Mr Putin. Should the United States go ahead with the NMD plan on its own, it will have done so against the wishes not only of Russia and China but also of some of its European allies.
Despite the friendly overtones and the declaration by Mr Bush that the US and Russia were no longer enemies there was a note of caution in Mr Putin's post-summit remarks. While welcoming co-operation on international security he added that any unilateral action could serve to make existing differences even more complicated. Mr Bush has not so far succumbed to pressures from associates to go ahead with NMD on a unilateral basis. His commitment to further consultations within NATO as well as with Russia and possibly China gives ground for encouragement.