The alliance, rooted in the fight against terrorism and joined enthusiastically by President Vladimir Putin, is being tested by irritants stretching from the Middle East to the Pacific.

Most analysts suggest that strains over Iraq, Iran, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and events closer to home in Chechnya and ex-Soviet Georgia will not lead to a breakdown. Both sides, rather, will ease into a realization that good relations are vital while acknowledging different interests on some major issues.

"From the Black Sea to the Yellow Sea, US and Russian policies place the two countries at loggerheads," said independent defense analyst Pavel Felgenhauer.

"I cannot say that the situation is irreparable. But it is likely to remain a thorn on the side of relations. The obvious conclusion to draw is that Russia will either have to change policy or to face the consequences."

The Kremlin leadership has been eager to trumpet to its own people the benefits of its unambiguous pro-Western stand, particularly in terms of closing Russia's gap with the West.

"We can say with certainty that Russia's foreign policy of recent years, consolidated by President Putin...has proven fully justified," Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said this week.

However, Ivanov said Russia had no evidence Iraq posed a threat to US security and denounced any proposed use of force against Baghdad.

The alliance formed after September 11 placed Russia's full weight behind the drive to oust Taliban Islamists from Afghanistan and led to an unprecedented US military presence both across the border in ex-Soviet Central Asia and later in Georgia.

The two sides began sharing intelligence and worked out an accord within nine months to cut strategic nuclear arsenals by two-thirds, though the pact involved many Russian concessions. In return, Russia secured largely symbolic benefits. It was recognized as a market economy by both the United States and European Union and won a new deal with NATO and a full membership of the prestigious G8 club of industrialized states.

In recent months, however, Washington has intensified criticism of Russian policy in Iraq and in neighboring Iran -- another state in the "axis of evil" denounced by President George W. Bush. Washington has tried to persuade Moscow to stop building a nuclear power plant near Iran's Gulf Coast which it says could help produce weapons. Eyebrows were raised over broader contacts with the DPRK, the last member of the "axis."

The White House backed Georgia in denouncing what it said was a Russian air raid on its territory and fresh calls were issued for a quicker political solution to Chechen separatism.

"The problem is that this was never an alliance in the traditional sense but a means of establishing stable relations ...amounting to a code of good conduct," said Jacques Sapir, a Russian specialist and professor at France's Post-Graduate School for Social Sciences.

"Russia will always establish limits to whatever concessions it makes," he said.

(China Daily September 5, 2002)