A few days ago, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged before a Senate appropriations subcommittee that relations with Russia are passing through a delicate period. In Moscow during talks with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and later President Vladimir Putin, Rice will make an effort to halt this slide toward confrontation. Ultimately, the United States must convey that it needs a friendly and moreover, a strong Russia.

The Kremlin and Rice have expressed their mutual readiness to discuss every hot topic. The United States is at loggerheads with Russia over a host of issues, including U.S. plans for a European-based missile defense system and the threat of a Russian veto of a plan for the independence of Kosovo. Then there is the problem with Iran and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, where the countries have lots of common ground.

But what's really at the heart of the talks is the concept of bilateral relations at a time when the terms of both Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin are nearing completion. Washington and Moscow each want the other as a strategic partner - which comports with the overwhelming sentiments of voters in their respective countries. But it's also true that there is an element of circular reasoning to this: It is the governments in power that largely mold these sentiments.

In this sense, it's not really the range of topics that will be addressed by Rice with her Russian interlocutors that's at issue, but the context within which the talks are taking place. This is the first visit to Moscow by a top-ranking U.S. official since Putin's February speech in Munich , where he accused the United States of a desire to create a world with "one master." The speech prompted a barrage of accusations in the American media that Russia is in the grips of all sorts of evil, above all the supposed autocratic nature of Russia's leadership.

In contrast, Putin's Victory Day speech in Red Square on May 9 was a model of restraint. In general terms, he merely expressed regret that other countries haven't waived their claim to an "exclusive diktat over the world." He could have been referring to Tehran or Pyongyang. But as if in obedience to Freud's theories on messages from the unconscious, Washington decided that the statement was made at its expense.

The U.S. Embassy in Moscow asked for and received a clarification from the Russian Foreign Ministry: No, no one wanted to compare American policies with those of the Third Reich.

Despite the peaceful conclusion of this episode, Rice used her testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on International Relations to renew accusations about the Kremlin's backsliding on democracy. She has been doing so with ever-increasing sharpness, alongside complaints about the "alarming concentration of power in the Kremlin." She went on to say that, " I think everybody around the world, in Europe, in the United States, is very concerned about the internal course that Russia has taken in recent years."

Perhaps Dr. Rice sincerely believes what she claims. But the U.S. federal budget points in the opposite direction. Appropriations for the development of democracy in Russia declined by half in just the last year alone, from $43 million in 2006 to $26 million in 2007. Simply put, America no longer considers it necessary to spend more money to help fund pseudo-independent news and other non-governmental organizations in Russia. Why is that?

Perhaps Washington is more or less satisfied with Russia's progress toward democracy. Incidentally, this was somewhat hastily admitted the other day by Rice's colleague, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried. Speaking on May 9 at a pan-European forum in Berlin, Fried said that "Russia even today is freer than under the Communists, and arguably freer than at any time under the Tsars."

So the problem is not only in different interpretations of democracy. There are some things Russia discusses frequently and loudly, but which the United States tries to avoid. To understand this point, the U.S. needs only to put itself in Russia's shoes. What would the Bush administration think and do if the Kremlin tried to reopen its electronic intelligence gathering center in Cuba, sent 5,000 troops to Mexico and Venezuela (the U.S. has dispatched such forces to Bulgaria and Romania), and in general resumed a policy of deterrence vis-a-vis its "strategic partner"?

Condoleezza Rice will most likely be asked such questions in Moscow, and answering them won't be an easy task.

This article was written for RIA Novosti by its political commentator Vladimir Simonov and translated by William Kern for Watching America, America's Public Intelligence Agency. It appears in The Tiraspol Times & Weekly Review with permission.