May 6 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush said in 2001 that he had looked Russian leader Vladimir Putin in the eye and ``was able to get a sense of his soul.'' Senator John McCain says he looked into Putin's eyes ``and saw three letters: KGB.''

McCain, 71, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, favors expelling Russia from the Group of Eight club of industrial powers. He calls for forging a ``League of Democracies'' to confront Putin and hand-picked successor Dmitry Medvedev, who takes over tomorrow, on Russian threats against former Soviet republics and rollbacks of domestic freedoms.

The candidate's approach to Russia signals that he has aligned himself with hard-line foreign-policy advisers who favor democracy promotion above all and rejects advocates of doing business with authoritarian regimes when it suits U.S. interests.

McCain's aggressive policy may encounter difficulties because the U.S. needs support from Russia, a nuclear power, on critical issues such as containing Iran. Russia's economy, enriched by oil exports, also is less vulnerable to outside pressure than at the start of Bush's presidency.

``McCain is going to be dealing with an ascendant Russia,'' said Robert McFarlane, national security adviser under President Ronald Reagan. By contrast, Reagan ``benefited from dealing with a Soviet Union that was pretty much in decline.''

Eyes `Turned Back'

Russians are aware that McCain's rhetoric is harsher than that of the Democratic presidential candidates, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Medvedev said Feb. 26 that he wanted to work with a ``modern'' U.S. leader rather than one ``whose eyes are turned back to the past.''

McCain's turn toward those who favor confronting Russia has left ``realist'' supporters such as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger out in the cold for now, said Dimitri Simes, who heads the Washington-based Nixon Center, a foreign-policy research institution.

``While McCain has a lot of prominent, distinguished realists who support him, have access to him and remain friends with him, none of them imply that they have real influence on him at this point,'' Simes said in an interview.

Nonetheless, Kissinger and McFarlane suggest the Arizonan may temper his views on Russia once in the White House.

``I am sure that Senator McCain will over time state a fuller view of his convictions,'' Kissinger said last month on Bloomberg Television's ``Political Capital with Al Hunt.''

Challenging Russia

McFarlane said a McCain administration will be dominated at first by ``neocon redux'' advisers who favor challenging Russia at every turn. He predicts such a policy will founder on the reefs of Russia's rising economic power.

``For the first year you're going to see, very likely, disagreement, public sniping'' between McCain and Russian leaders, McFarlane said at an April 28 forum at Simes's center. ``If there's good news, it is that in the second year all those youngsters will get fired and maybe we'll settle down to a more really realistic presidency.''

The candidate's chief foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, said McCain means what he said -- and that he is the true realist. Challenging Russian leaders' misconduct is the only practical way to change their behavior, Scheunemann said in an interview.

``The Russians have made a very cold calculation of what their interests are,'' said Scheunemann. ``They will pursue those interests until they understand that there will be some cost to them.''

Obama, Clinton

Both Obama, 46, of Illinois, and Clinton, 60, of New York, oppose as counterproductive, as does Bush, the expulsion of Russia from the annual G-8 summit.

``Our response is, help us understand how kicking them out of the G-8 is going to help the democratic activists inside Russia,'' Obama's main Russia adviser, Stanford University scholar Michael McFaul, said in an interview.

Obama believes the U.S. can do business with Russia on arms control and counter-terrorism ``and talk with them about democracy at the same time,'' McFaul said.

Clinton, like McCain, has mocked Bush's ``soul'' comment about Putin. ``He was a KGB agent,'' she said on Jan. 7. ``By definition, he doesn't have a soul.'' Her comments about Russia have been more critical than Bush's, without providing specifics on tougher policy proposals.

In a March 2 statement greeting Medvedev's election, Clinton said she would test his stated desire for a new start in relations with ``eyes wide open,'' working together on joint concerns such as terrorism and nuclear proliferation while clarifying ``what America's priorities are and that we will stand up for them.''

NATO Inclusion

While all three candidates back the eventual inclusion of Ukraine and Georgia into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, they differ over another sore point with Russia, a U.S. plan for a missile-defense system in Europe. McCain supports the plan as protection from Iranian ballistic missiles; Clinton and Obama say Bush is rushing to deploy unproven technology.

Given this political landscape, most Russian leaders prefer an Obama presidency, if only because he has avoided McCain's and Clinton's Putin-bashing, said Alexei Pushkov, a Russian foreign- policy analyst and television commentator.

``The best was Obama; he didn't say anything,'' Pushov said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ken Fireman in Washington at kfireman1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: May 6, 2008 00:01 EDT