Putin's "bolt from the blue".(THE LAST WORD)(Vladimir Putin )

Russian President Vladimir Putin caused a global kerfuffle amongst political and media types with his proposal at the recent G 8 Summit in Germany for a joint U.S.-Russian missile-defense system sited at a Soviet-built base in Azerbaijan. This is Putin's counter to President Bush's plan to build a missile-defense system based in Poland and the Czech Republic as a shield against a missile attack from Iran--or elsewhere.

Although Putin's G 8 "surprise" was preceded by weeks of escalating Cold War-style rhetoric from Moscow, the Bush administration appears to be open to the offer. Don't be surprised if Bush, Putin, and their policy coteries announce some sort of adoption of the Azerbaijan option at (or sometime after) the Bush-Putin summit in Kennebunkport, Maine, during the first week of July.

The Associated Press reported on June 11 that "Bush's reaction to Putin's idea was: 'Interesting proposal--let's let our experts have a look at it,' according to White House National Security Adviser Steve Hadley," who was in the closed Bush-Putin G 8 meeting at Heilgendamm. "Hadley did not rule out the possibility that the end result would be some mix of the Russian and the U.S. proposals," the AP report continued. "We asked the Russians to cooperate with us on missile defense, and I think what we got is a willingness to do so," Hadley said after the Bush-Putin meeting.

President Bush said his Kennebunkport retreat with Putin "will be a serious set of strategic discussions."

The reaction from Western media mavens and policy experts to Putin's Azerbaijan option has been one of astonishment. Take, for instance, the June 11, 2007 interview posted on the website of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the premier foreign-policy think tank, boasting an unmatched membership roster of Washington, D.C., insiders. The council's Consulting Editor Bernard Gwertzman is interviewing CFR Senior Fellow Charles A. Kupchan, who is also the council's Director of European Studies. Kupchan, whom the website describes as the council's "top European expert," professed to have been completely caught off guard by Putin's proposal. He described it as a "bolt from the blue" and said "nobody saw it coming." Mr. Gwertzman seemed equally amazed.

Interesting. The Council on Foreign Relations, which has for decades shamelessly billed itself as "the Wise Men of Foreign Affairs," suddenly is claiming to be totally astonished by this development. Actually, this professed surprise is, most ...