Bush as lame duck adds to Russia's bravado

By Richard Cowan - Analysis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's waning influence on the world stage is encouraging Russia's show of military force in neighboring Georgia and move to recognize two rebel regions there as independent states.

With less than five months left in the White House, Bush is entering the "lame duck" period of his presidency facing new foreign policy challenges from both Russia and North Korea as he continues to struggle with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The fact that it's a period of transition in the U.S. certainly makes it easier for the Russians to act provocatively," said Jeff Mankoff, adjunct fellow for Russian studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Several foreign affairs experts agree the Bush administration failed to give Russia enough attention almost from day one, and then gave contradictory signals.

For example, Washington has tried to get Russia on board in doing more to help ensure Iran does not become a nuclear power while at the same time angering Moscow by moving ahead with a missile defense system in Russia's backyard in Eastern Europe.

Russia's growing desire to regain its superpower status, badly eroded in the 1990s, was of course the major factor behind the mid-August military occupation of Georgia and Moscow's declaration on Tuesday that the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia were now independent states.

So was Russia's interest in capitalizing on its new role as an oil exporting powerhouse.

But some analysts say the U.S. political calendar, as well as good summer weather, helped Russia's gambit in Georgia.

As the November 4 U.S. elections draw nearer, Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his Democratic opponent Barack Obama are becoming important voices on the future of U.S. foreign policy.

"There was this narrow calculation of the American political calendar" by Russia, said Leon Aron, director of Russian studies at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington.

Aron's scenario goes like this: with his influence sapped by the Iraq war, Bush "will not be able to muster much of a response" to Russia's actions in the final months of his presidency.

By the time McCain or Obama takes office on January 20 as the next U.S. president, Russia's bold move against Georgia "will be old news, fait accompli."

If Moscow had decided to wait and move its tanks and troops into Georgia early into the new U.S. president's term, Aron said, Obama or McCain possibly would have had to act more forcefully than Bush.

"Russia correctly believes that a new president tends to be under pressure to show a certain amount of toughness in foreign policy" at the beginning of his term in office, Aron said.

Andrew Grotto, a national security analyst for the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress, downplayed U.S. political factors in Russia's moves against Georgia.