There are two things about the U.S. plan to develop a National Missile Defense system (NMD) that have long been clear to Russian experts.

First, the United States will deploy this system. Second, these plans don't threaten Russia's nuclear deterrent potential, which is too great for any feasible missile defense system.

A clear understanding of these two circumstances gave Russian diplomats plenty of room for maneuver and opportunity to find and even push through a compromise that would have been in Russia's interests.

But over recent years, Russian diplomats have been repeating like a rote-learned mantra the formula that the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty is the cornerstone of strategic stability, never stopping to think what these words really mean.

Leaving aside Russian diplomats, let's come back to U.S. politicians. No matter who is in the White House, NMD is on the agenda in some way.

Former President Bill Clinton's Democratic administration took steps toward developing an NMD under pressure from the Republican majority in Congress. The Republican administration feels genuine ideological enthusiasm for NMD, while the Clinton administration spent several years sincerely and persistently trying to persuade the Russian side to accept modifications to the provisions of the ABM Treaty that place restrictions on NMD systems.

It's possible that Russia's monotonous repetition of its ABM mantra – which drove Clinton negotiators to desperation – was a demonstration of Moscow's diplomatic wisdom. Moscow understood the issue thoroughly, but wanted to wait until after the U.S. presidential election in order to conclude an advantageous agreement with the winner.

The problem is that the official Russian position hasn't become any more flexible since the Republicans came to power. What's more, and this is significant, since Jan. 20, 2001, no one has been trying to persuade us of anything. Formally, the official American position remains unchanged – Russia is invited to enter negotiations on modifying the ABM Treaty.

But a significant and influential part – if not the whole – of the Bush administration doesn't want the ABM Treaty modified. This concerns above all Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his supporters. They would rather see the United States withdraw completely from the treaty (which they can do as long as they give six-month notice). This would leave their hands free to pursue their plans. It's not even the military aspect of this scenario that interests them so much as the political outcome, which would put Russia outside any serious strategic agreements and deprive it of its last superpower trappings.

Rumsfeld left a security conference in Munich without even staying to hear Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Ivanov's reply and without bothering to debate with him. This was not just because he already knew what Ivanov would say but also because Ivanov's position suited him just fine.

For Russia, fighting to prevent modification of the ABM Treaty amounts to fighting to give the United States a free hand to deploy NMD. It also means fighting to push Russia out of its prestigious and genuinely significant seat in the club of nuclear superpowers, bound together by a system of agreements. And it means fighting to exclude the Russian military- industrial complex from the promising market in cutting-edge military technology.

What worries Rumsfeld more than anything is that Russia will pull out of this fight that has already driven our diplomacy into a dead end and will take up a reasonable position that actually meets our interests. But after so many years of rhetorical gymnastics and pumping up Russian public opinion, it's not so easy for the country's diplomats to retreat to a more constructive position without losing face.

Rumsfeld and Ivanov are confidently leading Russian-American relations toward a new Cold War, and it's no secret what the consequences will be for today's Russia.

(Andrei Piontkovsky is director of the Center for Strategic Research.)