June 6 (Bloomberg) -- By his own account, U.S. President George W. Bush looked into Vladimir Putin's eyes ``and saw his soul'' during their first get-together in Slovenia three months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The Russian president did his part by taking his mother's crucifix from his pocket in a demonstration of their common Christianity.

Before Bush's meeting with Putin later this week at the German seaside resort of Heiligendamm, the site of the latest Group of Eight summit, senior officials are warning Bush that his Russian counterpart may have converted to the most dangerous European religion: revisionism.

Historians define revisionists as those who rewrite history for their own purposes, while ignoring, denying or minimizing established facts.

After World War I, Germany was the classic revisionist power, disregarding established borders and international agreements. In Putin's case, it is to cast the West's Cold War victory as something other than one of the most-positive events of the 20th century, enlarging a European zone of democratic, independent countries and ending decades of often-bloody Soviet domination.

Putin poses a particular challenge because of his unrivaled domestic popularity, increasing authoritarianism, and the leverage that vast energy resources give him to reassert Russian regional power. U.S. officials believe Putin is also emboldened by perceived Bush administration weakness and distraction with Iraq, sensing an opportunity to reverse the political and economic humiliation most Russians felt after the Soviet collapse in 1991.

Short-Term

Some Western analysts see Putin's revisionism as either a short-term, personality-driven problem or one that has grown out of Western mistakes that can be corrected. These errors include the failure to integrate Russia after the Cold War's end or to reward Putin for backing Bush after Sept. 11 in the war on the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Yet European and U.S. officials are bracing for a longer, more difficult relationship with Russia that may last at least another generation of leadership. The candidate Putin chooses to support as his potential successor next year will be cut from the same cloth.

The latest shot across the West's bow came this past weekend. Putin said he may aim Russian nuclear missiles at European cities for the first time since the Cold War if the U.S. places 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic by 2012. The U.S. says the system is aimed at Iran, though Putin is certain it's designed to counter Russia.

Rhetorical Escalation

This follows a gradual escalation of rhetoric from Putin's February speech in Munich, where he said the U.S. was ``plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts.'' On top of that, Russia last week tested a new ballistic missile that Putin said could foil the American-designed missile-defense system.

Evidence of Russia's unfriendly turn ranges from the recent cyber-warfare on neighboring Estonia for its relocation of a Soviet war memorial to its refusal to extradite a secret-service officer that the U.K. fingered in the recent fatal poisoning of a former Russian spy.

Bush, who meets with Putin again next month at the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, has been muted in his criticism of Putin's attacks, which included a veiled comparison of U.S. foreign policy with that of Germany's Third Reich. The reasons: Bush's undying faith in his personal relationships, and his need for Russian help on issues ranging from containing Iranian nuclear ambitions to U.S. and European efforts to bring independence to Kosovo, the Serbian province that has an overwhelmingly Albanian majority.

Standing Up

One benefit of this low-key Washington posture is that it has made room for the European Union to stand up to Putin as never before. At a recent EU-Russia summit, the 27-nation bloc sided with Estonia after the Baltic nation relocated a World War II monument amid Russian protests.

With Russia also blockading Polish meat imports and switching off an oil pipeline to Lithuania, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso made clear to Putin that an attack on an EU member state -- several of which were once Soviet vassals -- was one on the EU itself.

To counteract Putin's anti-Western propaganda, the U.S. and Europe should offer Russia greater involvement in its missile- defense plans and within NATO itself. It should keep Russia on course for World Trade Organization membership and resist the temptation to throw it out of the G-8.

The argument against such a course is that it shows weakness to Putin. Yet the argument in favor is that it counteracts public opinion that underpins his revisionism, which ignores the common threats that Russia and the U.S. face, including Islamist extremism.

Second, the EU must follow up on its rhetoric of solidarity during its summit with Russia with an energy policy that limits Russia's ability to divide and conquer through bilateral energy deals such as the one struck with former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder for a Baltic gas pipeline that bypassed Poland.

Finally, the U.S. and EU together should further stabilize and economically strengthen the countries that gained their independence after the Soviet bloc crumbled in 1989 and after the Soviet Union collapsed two years later.

``Russia's revisionism, like Hitler Germany's revisionism, is directed primarily at east central Europe -- Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine and Belarus,'' says Alexander Motyl, a professor of eastern and central European studies at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey.

``Then as now, the West's stability and security is dependent on these states' stability and security. Unfortunately, too many Europeans still think of the non-Russians as a nuisance, and not a central component of their own future,'' he says.

No revisionism can change that.

(Frederick Kempe, president of the Atlantic Council, is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Frederick Kempe in Washington at fkempe@acus.org.

Last Updated: June 6, 2007 05:15 EDT