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It's been one of the recurring themes of the Bush administration: a rejection of the traditional concept of diplomacy as a game of give-and-take in which trading away concessions allows you to get what you want on your top priorities.

Nowhere is this more evident than in U.S. policy toward Russia. Allow me to explain what I mean. The United States and Russia differ starkly on a few discrete issues: NATO enlargement in former Soviet republics such as Ukraine and Georgia, the ABM Treaty and the proposed U.S. missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, the Conventional Forces Europe (CFE) Treaty, Kosovo, the Nabucco trans-Caspian pipeline, and democracy and human rights. Meanwhile, the United States has sought cooperation from Russia on Iraq, Iran's nuclear program, the six-party talks with North Korea, and a host of other issues large and small.

Normally, you might think that the United States would prioritize these issues and make tradeoffs to achieve its most important objectives. But, as President Bush made clear in Ukraine last week, when he said, "There's no tradeoffs, period," U.S. officials don't believe they have to make any concessions. Each issue should be viewed separately and on its merits, they argue, rather than linked. Ukraine and Georgia should be admitted to NATO because it's the right thing to do. Russia should not feel threatened by U.S.-backed "color revolutions" in former Soviet republics or by American defense installations in Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, and Bulgaria. Russia should accept Kosovo's independence. Russia should cooperate in preventing Iran from going nuclear because a nuclear Iran is not in Russia's interests. And so on.

The only problem is, the Russians have a vastly different view of their own interests. They see U.S. moves, such as trying to convince Turkmenistan to sell its gas to Europe or pushing to bring Georgia into NATO, as extremely hostile acts reminiscent of the cold war. It makes them less willing to cooperate on other issues; it heightens their paranoia and feeling of besiegement, and it strengthens the elements within the Russian strategic class who see geopolitics as a zero-sum game with the United States as their chief adversary. (By the way, these are the same guys who aren't so into the whole democracy thing.) For many years, a failure to take Russian interests into account wasn't an obvious problem because the Russians were weak and took their lumps. But as we're seeing nowadays, they are willing to make provocative moves such as pulling out of the CFE treaty or threatening to split Ukraine when they don't get their way.

Now, maybe Russia is still a paper tiger and its bluster shouldn't dissuade the United States from strongly backing pro-Western governments in Ukraine and Georgia or trying to cut Gazprom off at the knees in Central Asia. Maybe some degree of democratic backsliding was inevitable after the chaos of the 1990s. I tend to think, though, that the United States underestimates how these issues interrelate at its peril. In the real world, there are tradeoffs, and we can't wish them away.

Blake Hounshell is Web Editor of ForeignPolicy.com. He has been blogging this week from the Salzburg Global Seminar session on Russia: The 2020 Perspective.

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As expected, NATO has decided not to extend an invitation to the Republic of Macedonia -- excuse me, I mean "the Former Yugoslav Constitutional Republic of Upper Northwestern Macedonia, Skopje." That's right, Greece stuck to its nationalistic guns on the name issue today, carrying out its threat to block NATO membership if Macedonia didn't agree (and it didn't) to call itself the "Republic of Upper Macedonia," the "Republic of Macedonia, Skopje," or some comparably wordy derivative.

Macedonians didn't take the rejection well. After Greece blocked accession talks, Macedonian President Branko Crvenkovski and his delegation walked out of the meeting. Antonio Milososki, Foreign Minister, told reporters:

We are [in Bucharest] today to announce that we are leaving the summit. We feel it necessary to be with our people today.”

Not a bad idea. Their people needed all the comforting they could get. Back at home, Macedonian stocks suffered a record blow, with the Macedonian Bourse Index losing 10.4 percent of its total value after it became clear that the country would not get an invite.

Acceptance into NATO carries great weight for these small, former communist countries. Neighboring President Bamir Topi of Albania, whose country did receive a coveted NATO invitation, proclaimed, "This is the most important decision in the history of Albanian people… With this decision we are definitely separated from Yalta," referring to the 1945 conference of the "Big Three" at which Stalin claimed Albania for the communist bloc. 

But NATO membership is more than symbolic for Macedonia, which narrowly missed a Kosovo-style ethnic war in 2001 thanks to an EU/NATO-brokered peace agreement. The country may now decide to pull out of U.N.-led name negotiations entirely, in which case Greece will repeat its power play on the EU front. If Macedonia is knocked off its current EU accession path because of a Macedonian identity issue, the state's large, pro-EU Albanian minority will not be happy. And all we need in the Balkans is one more unhappy ethnic minority.

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French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel attend the first formal working session on the second day of the NATO summit at the Parliament Palace in Bucharest on April 3, 2008. NATO leaders begin negotiations in earnest over Afghanistan after the opening day of their three-day summit saw a successful French offer of more troops, but a public disagreement over the alliance's enlargement.

Ireland's decision to send Dustin the Turkey -- a crass puppet who rides around in a shopping cart -- as its representative to the Eurovision Song Contest was met with mixed reviews by audience members last month. But the Irish aren't the only ones calling this turkey "fowl." Once again, because of the Macedonia name issue, the Greeks are up in arms.

At one point in the turkey's song "Irelande Douze Pointe" ("Ireland Twelve Points," in reference to the maximum points each country can give a contestant), Dustin sings, "Eastern Europe we love you, do you like Irish stew, or goulash as it is to you?" then proceeds to list countries in Eastern Europe one by one, including Macedonia (check here for clearer audio -- the lyrics are pretty great).

Ever since Macedonia's independence in 1991, Athens has argued that the name "Macedonia" is a part of Hellenic cultural heritage and that the former Yugoslav republic expresses territorial claims on northern Greece by using it. Now, thanks to Greek paranoia, rumor has it that Dustin the Turkey will have to join the U.N. in calling the country FRY Macedonia ("The Former Yugoslav Republic of...") in his lyrics.

But the name issue gets far more serious on the security front. Macedonia hopes to be invited to join NATO at the Bucharest Summit this coming Wednesday, but an invitation requires the unanimous support of existing NATO members, including Greece. Despite months of U.N.-supervised negotiations, neither Athens nor Skopje seem capable of coming to an agreement any time soon, spelling trouble for Macedonia's NATO aspirations.

Greece may have Macedonia in a NATO bind, but come May we'll see who gets the last Eurovision laugh. With acts like this as the winning standard, it's really anyone's game.

State Department officials John Negroponte and Richard Boucher are in Islamabad for what sounds like an extremely uncomfortable meeting with Pakistan's new government. Pakistan People's Party advisor and FP contributor Husain Haqqani made it clear that things ain't what they used to be for the Americans in Pakistan:

If I can use an American expression, there is a new sheriff in town," Mr. Haqqani said. "Americans have realized that they have perhaps talked with one man for too long."

China has announced that around 100 countries have voiced moral support for its recent actions against Tibetan protestors (Tibet's exile government claims 130 protestors have died). Xinhua, China's state news agency, ran a list of some of the said 100 countries (more here) -- and oh, what a list it is.

Highlights include:

• North Korea and Turkmenistan: both of whom actually managed to do worse than China in the Worldwide Press Freedom Index last year.
• Côte d'Ivoire: the number six Failed State (2007), dubbed "one of Africa's most dangerous countries for both local and foreign media" by Reporters Without Borders.
• Syria and Belarus: both recently proclaimed as among the worst human rights offenders by the U.S. State Department -- again, outdoing China.

In a list like this, the inclusion of Serbia actually seems to improve legitimacy levels.

Though the list may seem unsavory, Xinhua explains in a story today that German, British, and American media are actually full of lies. Through a series of "truth" and "lies" stills taken of Western media coverage of the recent riots, Xinhua makes a good case for why support from an up-and-coming superpower like Lesotho is far more valuable than say, a vote of confident from Nancy Pelosi.

(Thanks to Passport reader AS for the tip.)

World Bank President Robert Zoellick, formerly the number two in the State Department, told Europeans at the Brussels Forum that the next U.S. president is going to piss them off:

Zoellick began his session by challenging European expectations for a new U.S. president. "My major concern is that the tenor of the debate in Europe is raising expectations – regardless of who the next president is – that overlooks a range of interests that I think both parties in the United States would pursue and also some ideologies… they would pursue, and that those heightened expectations will inevitably have to be adjusted," Zoellick said.

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Hugo Chávez's former defense minister, Raúl Baduel, had harsh words this week for his old boss, who sent Venezuelan troops to the Colombian border over the weekend in response to Colombia's military incursion in Ecuador:

This is a desperate attempt by President Chávez to use the military for political and personal ends, making them participants in an action whose consequences could be disastrous."

In other words, Baduel is accusing Chávez of fomenting an international crisis in order to distract from his domestic political problems. It's a significant move, coming from someone whose personal and professional relationship with the Venezuelan president spans 35 years, culminating with Baduel's resignation from the defense ministry in 2007. Baduel is a legendary revolutionary figure in Venezuela, best known for defending Hugo Chávez during the April 2002 coup attempt, and for his fierce loyalty to the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement that Chávez founded in the 1980s. But as Chávez tried to push through constitutional reforms late last year, Baduel began distancing himself from the president, citing his moral and ethical obligation to point out the harm Chávez would do to Venezuela if he succeeded in centralizing executive power and socializing the economy.

It's good that somebody is calling Chávez to account, because most in the region seem distracted by the accusations being hurled back and forth between Colombia and Ecuador. Colombia claims to have found evidence linking Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), whose leader Raul Reyes was killed in this weekend's raid. Colombian President Álvaro Uribe says that Venezuela has been funding FARC and has pledged to take Chávez to international court for funding genocide. And although Peru's president, Alan García, suggested that Chavez should butt out of the diplomatic row between Ecuador and Colombia, he is also urging Uribe to apologize and avoid setting a bad precedent for sovereignty. As Passport reader joeljournal noted on Monday, though, some would say that propping up a terrorist group in your neighbor's country isn't such a great precedent to set either.

Over at Democracy Arsenal, a blog about foreign policy from a Democratic perspective, Michael Cohen says he thinks all the excitement over the New York Philharmonic's trip to Pyongyang is a bit ridiculous:

Look, I don't mean to sound like a curmudgeon... but I really don't see how this event does anything to impact the terrible existence of the North Korean people. It seems instead to me as if the Philharmonic (well meaning as they certainly are) was played for a patsy.

That's certainly the tenor of comments you'll get from folks like Brian Meyers, the dean of international studies at Dongseo University in Pusan, who believes the trip was a propaganda boon to Kim Jong Il's regime.

I wonder, though, who was really making the claim that the trip would help the North Korean people? The question at hand is whether the Philharmonic's performance could somehow help move the nuclear negotiations along. For some answers on that front, check out FP's interview with Nam Sung-wook, a top "North Koreanologist" at Korea University in Seoul.

Photo: US Navy via Getty Images

For the first time ever, the United States will use a ship-based missile to take out a satellite. In the next day or two, the world will witness a modified weapons capability that will have significant policy implications. But it's the "how" story behind the scenes that has Russia sweating.

The spy satellite malfunctioned hours after reaching orbit in December 2006. When re-entry became imminent beginning in January of this year, the U.S. Navy got busy computer coding. The Navy can now outfit a standard missile (SM-3) that was designed for intercepting other missiles with a new brain that gives it the ability to target spacecraft. In this instance, the missiles will come from an Aegis cruiser, but ground-based missiles like the ones the United States wants to put in Poland can be larger and have farther range. 

Theresa Hitchens, director of the space security program at the Center for Defense Information, noted the comments of General James E. Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said in a press conference that it took the Navy three weeks to reconfigure the new targeting software. The implication? Hitchens told me:

If [the United States] wanted to develop that type of software (that could be downloaded into the missiles that would be placed in Poland), we could in a very short period of time. So I understand why the Russians might be pretty nervous about this."

A little software change, in other words, could end up posing a big threat to strategic spacecraft in the future. General Cartwright insisted this new capability will be executed on a "one-time reversible basis." But there's no way the U.S. military would throw away the keys to a new generation of missiles. The Russians would probably prefer that this Pandora's box not be opened, but once it is, all space-faring countries are going to have a new threat to worry about.

I've blogged before about the U.S. State Department's bizarre daily appointments e-mail for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The e-mail often arrives after the events noted therein have already taken place, rendering it all but useless. Today was no different in that regard, except that whoever mailed it out seemed especially eager to inform me of Ms. Rice's morning meeting with defense ministers from Adriatic Charter states.

Today must be an especially an important day for Ms. Rice, so I'll reprint the e-mail below. Here's what flooded my inbox at 2:11 p.m. today:

Daily Appointments Schedule for February 19, 2008

SECRETARY OF STATE RICE:

Two weeks ago, I wrote about a U.S. spy satellite that had gone haywire and might need to be shot down. I noted how diplomatically sensitive it would be for the United States to do so after telling China that anti-satellite tests are a big no-no. Some commentators downplayed the possibility that the United States would really shoot the satellite down, but now comes word that it's gonna happen: The U.S. military will use its missile-defense system to blow the errant satellite to smithereens.

Mind you, a missile-defense system is not supposed to be a dual-use satellite killer. U.S. officials have pledged compliance with space and weapons treaties by giving other countries advance notice before shooting off space missiles. They also insist the move is necessary to prevent contamination from toxic substances and is not a showcase of U.S. weapons capability. Still, in the wake of the Chinese satellite missile hoopla, it smacks of "Anything you can do, I can do better."

What's more, shooting the satellite down could create orbital debris, which was a major point of criticism after the Chinese experiment. U.S. officials insist the Chinese test was different in nature as it was higher in altitude and the resulting debris poses a much longer-term threat. They estimate the mess from the U.S. operation will fall to the Earth within a few weeks, whereas debris from the Chinese test will be a danger for decades.

Meanwhile, Russia and China formally proposed a treaty banning space weapons this week, a move swiftly opposed by the White House. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov argues that space weaponization would cause a "chain reaction" and would start another "arms race."  Too late, Sergei -- the weaponization of space has already begun.

Russian Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov seems mighty pleased with himself for negotiating a mutibillion-dollar nuclear energy deal with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh:

PRAKASH SINGH/AFP/Getty Images

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Sen. Dick Lugar, the senior Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, isn't the kind of guy who goes around spouting invectives. So when he says something like this, it's worth paying attention:

I'm not certain we have a plan for Afghanistan."

The comment came at a Capitol Hill hearing yesterday where Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher insisted the war in Afghanistan is being won. Boucher visited Afghanistan last week and told senators, "Nobody can tell me it's not going in a positive direction." That was enough to prompt Sen. Chuck Hagel to ask the obvious: "If we are making so much progress, why are we putting in 3,200 more Marines?"

Hagel's question can be answered in one word: Europe. Sec Def Bob Gates is betting that if NATO's European members see more U.S. Marines on the ground, they will be emboldened to send more of their own boys. Gates has reportedly sent stern letters to Franz Josef Jung, the German defense minister, and his other European counterparts asking for more troops. A peeved Jung turned down the U.S. request today, saying Germany's 3,100 troops, stationed mainly in Kabul, are "doing important, useful work."

Now the question is whether the other European NATO members will also fail to heed the warnings detailed in three independent reports this week, including one led by Gen. James Jones, the former chief U.S. commander in Afghanistan, that the war in Afghanistan is being lost. "Make no mistake," the Jones report says (pdf), "NATO is not winning in Afghanistan."

Will Europe sit idly by as Afghanistan is lost? It can't have helped to have Boucher painting a rosy picture on the Hill yesterday. Public opinion in Europe remains staunchly anti-war. A majority of Germans, for instance, say they oppose the continued deployment of German troops in Afghanistan. Now many will ask why their soldiers must remain if things are going so well. To Lugar's point, it doesn't appear the Bush administration has thought this out very well.

But the real blame here is at the feet of the Europeans. There is a broad split between America and Europe on what to do in Afghanistan. Two European diplomats had to be expelled from the country at the behest of U.S. officials after they allegedly held secret talks with the Taliban behind the alliance's back. Reasonable nations can disagree on how and when to negotiate with elements such as the Taliban. But if NATO members cannot support the military effort in Afghanistan, you have to wonder what it is that these countries stand for. A failure in Afghanistan will be judged by history as pure cowardice, and NATO will have been rendered the 21st century's most useless organization.