U.S. President George W. Bush (L) and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin smile after a joint news conference at the Bocharov Ruchey presidential summer residence at the Black Sea in Sochi on April 6, 2008. Bush and Putin began a final effort on Sunday to try to mend frayed relations face-to-face but with little hopes of resolving the dispute over missile defense. (UPI Photo/Anatoli Zhdanov)

LOS ANGELES, April 25 (UPI) -- Perhaps it says something about the "positive" state of Russian-American relations that the recent Bush-Putin Sochi summit could take place at all against the backdrop of Moscow's strenuous opposition to NATO expansion and Washington's plans to build a ballistic defense in neighboring countries. So it ought to come as no surprise that, despite the happy face the two leaders put on at the end of their meeting, the best their Strategic Framework Declaration could come up with was the statement of dedication to move from a relationship of "strategic competition to strategic partnership."

That Presidents Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush failed to establish the partnership after eight years in office is discouraging enough. That the failure also included, in the Declaration's words, the inability to move "beyond past strategic principles, which focused on the prospect of mutual annihilation," can be acceptable to no one.

If we are to end this deadly nuclear embrace, we must first understand the immediate and underlying intellectual roadblocks.

Arguably, Bush generated kindling for the current dispute over ballistic missile defense in Europe when he unilaterally bolted from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty six years ago. Then, Russia could only grin and bear it. Today, an economically resurgent Kremlin, still smarting, refuses to play second fiddle. To demonstrate determination to push back, in December 2007 it suspended implementation of the 1991 Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty while reserving the threat to withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

But in the nuclear scheme of things, Europe is a backwater. The greater danger remains the atomic superpowers' lingering large strategic arsenals.