Something went awry in Clinton's summit with Putin, argues PNS commentator Franz Schurmann, and now his geopolitics seem to be unraveling. The "who lost Russia?" question could soon reemerge as the presidential election campaign heats up. Schurmann is professor emeritus of history and sociology at UC-Berkeley and author of numerous books on global politics.

Observers in Moscow noted that the recent Clinton-Putin summit seemed like a throwback to the Cold War. More likely it shows serious flaws in President Clinton's geopolitics that till now he has so successfully pursued during his second term.

Global peace, prosperity and democracy, in that order, are the key aims of Clinton's geopolitics. Before the Moscow trip the outlook for peace in East Asia was good. In West Asia the premature Israeli pull-back from southern Lebanon was a big step forward towards regional peace. Despite ups and downs, oil prices dropped and inflation remained subdued. The superheated American economy was slowing down. The euro was up. And once again, America was preparing to show the world through its general election 2000 how peace, prosperity and democracy were linked. Instead something went askew in Moscow. One thing that did was the agreement to "destroy" 34 tons of radioactive plutonium in the arsenals of each country. But the only way plutonium can be destroyed is to shoot it into the sun! Alternatively, radioactivity must be contained through measures that require close cooperation between America and Russia. After Moscow, that collaboration looks much shaker than before. American, Russian, Chinese, Indian and Japanese military budgets are fast rising, as they are for other nations all over the world. Few of them are talking war but mistrust is growing. The U.S. is going back to an updated national missile defense system which it abandoned in 1972 for the sake of better relations with the Soviet Union.

The new global arms races have been going on for some time. But after Moscow they too look more difficult to contain. Right after Clinton's departure, Putin went to Europe preaching his own anti-missile defense plan. He soon will be in China bringing the same message. And he has announced a trip to North Korea where he is will urge the North Koreans to keep up their missile program, the same one Clinton is trying to discourage. Both presidents agreed on the need to fight "terrorism" wherever it appears but differ widely on what terrorism is.

A few weeks ago President Clinton sounded a dire warning about the terrorist threat in a speech at the Coast Guard Academy. But terrorism still does not have a recognizable face to most Americans. On the other hand, Putin has just warned Russians that Wahhabi terrorists are again attacking civilian targets. For ordinary Russians, that means people with features common to the Caucasus, Middle East and Central Asia.

Wahhabism is the official creed of Saudi Arabia, the pivot on which the great Anglo-American global oil system moves. Every time the Russians use the word its a needle jab into American skin. Yet Wahhabism is also the faith embraced by Osama Bin Laden whom Clinton identified as the world's greatest terrorist in his Coast Guard Academy speech.

The Wahhabi movement started some two centuries ago in the Saudi deserts. Rejecting differences of race and ethnicity among people, it divides all humans into two categories -- those who fear God and those who don't. Both Clinton and Putin see Osama Bin Laden as the organizer of a far flung Islamic international group that is backing the Chechen and other rebels. But while Putin sees Wahhabism as an ideological enemy that is a dire threat to all the Islamic regions of the former Soviet Union, Clinton seeks a more pragmatic accommodation. The U.S. is pressuring Afghanistan -- Wahhabism's newest convert -- to turn over Osama Bin Laden to the West in return for smooth functioning of global oil and gas operations. In principle both America and Russia agree on nuclear non-proliferation. But Washington worries about India's new nuclear weapons capability. Russia, an old ally of India, does not. Russia points to Israel with some 200 deliverable nuclear weapons as an American ally to justify its arms supplies to Iran and Iraq.

Perhaps the biggest mistake Clinton made when shaping his geopolitics was neglecting Russia under Yeltsin and Putin. Both had been telling the world Russia was not just another country hit by bad fortune but a "derzhava," a Great Power. But Clinton preferred to let Vice President Gore be his point man on Russia policy while he pursued his peace and prosperity goals in East and West Asia.

America's Russia policy was shredded when the Kosovo war began. It turned to shambles when Putin became president on January 1, 2000. In the next weeks, the world will likely feel the ripple-out effects of America's failed Russia policy. A new policy may have to wait for the next American president. Meanwhile, the question of "who lost Russia?" is sure to reemerge as the presidential election campaign heats up.