In the case of the Russians, President Vladimir Putin has used the horrendous attack on a school in Beslan by Chechen rebels to introduce anti-democratic, centralizing changes that will make Russia more authoritarian. So much for the budding democracy there!

In the face of international criticism, Putin is seeking support for his actions. Apparently in the face of attacks by Senator John Kerry, President George W. Bush did criticize Putin, but The Financial Times (September 16) cited Professor Peter Reddaway of George Washington University that "U.S. domestic politics were playing a big part in Mr. Bush's remarks" and "it remained to be seen whether the U.S. would translate rhetoric into tougher action." The New York Times also called attention to Mr. Bush's rather "guarded critique" of Putin's actions.

In The Weekly Standard (September 8), neoconservative William Kristol had already urged that "We must make common cause" with the Russians, while Martin Wolf replied (Financial Times, September 21) that "We embrace Putin at our peril."

As reported in The Observer (September 19), the British announced an October cut of one third of their 5,000 troops in Iraq. Heralded as the second largest contingent in the "Coalition of the Willing" after the U.S. military, this has long been untrue. American private mercenaries, now at about 30,000, with more being trained each day by Halliburton, constitute the second largest Coalition force in Iraq.

All of this occurs as the U.S. military admits that numerous towns are under the control of the insurgents, but vows to retake these before the "democratic" elections scheduled for January. Given the growing manpower shortages of the U.S.'s regular forces, how will this be accomplished?

The escalating crisis in Chechnya, and the deteriorating situation in Iraq, suggest that both the U.S. and the Russians are still considering such an agreement. For Bush, the advantage of Russian help is obvious. Even though the polls seem to show increasing support for the President, these do not translate into stability in Iraq before the elections here or there.

As U.S. tactics of violence against civilians in Iraq increase, egged on by the U.S.'s Israeli advisors (Associated Press, December 13, 2003) to use helicopters and bulldozers in sustained attacks on urban neighborhoods, the Russians have long demonstrated few qualms at killing civilians on a large scale.

What's in this for the Russians beyond justifying their actions in Chechnya?

As noted by the commentator "Spengler" in The Asian Times (August 3) the U.S. strategy in Central Asia has proven to be "dead wrong." Policy makers such as Paul Wolfowitz imagined that replacing one secular regime in Iraq with a new one would protect Israel and bring stability to the region. Instead, these actions have aided Islamic fundamentalism as well as Al Qaeda, and have destabilized the whole region from Egypt to Pakistan.

Ironically, Turkey, the one once-solid secular regime in the area, has once again become the "sick man", as fundamentalist forces increase there. Given Russia's oil fields in the Black Sea and the oil throughout Central Asia, cooperation with the U.S. over pipelines offers a way for the two empires, Russia and the U.S., to counter the rise of Islamic fundamentalism there.

As empires evolve they tend to adopt similar tactics for survival. The Harvard advocate for empire, Samuel P. Huntington, was wrong in the 1960s when he argued that while U.S. forces had trouble with rural guerrillas in Vietnam, they could easily handle an urban insurgency-Iraq has exposed that nonsense! He was also fundamentally wrong in the 1990s with the notion of "a clash of civilizations" which as Arnold Toynbee argued in the 1940s, instead borrow enormously from each other, just as Huntington is wrong more recently about Hispanic-Americans.