Condi's coded message

DURING her recent trip to the oil-rich Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice displayed some diplomatic finesse. "This is not some kind of contest for the affections of Kazakhstan," she said upon her arrival in Astana, the country's capital. "Kazakhstan has excellent relations with all its neighbors and that's the way it should be."

The neighbor not mentioned was Russia. Rice was quite properly telling Kazakhstan's autocratic President Nursultan Nazarbayev that the United States accepts his commercial and military ties to the Kremlin. At the same time, she was signaling to the Kremlin that Washington is not trying to displace Russia as an ally and client of Kazakhstan.

Rice's rejection of a zero-sum game in Central Asia reflects a sound assumption that Kazakhstan can distinguish between its own interests and Russia's. Witness Kazakhstan's refusal to follow Russia in recognizing as independent the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

But Rice showed a hard edge when she said, "We don't see and don't accept any notion of a special sphere of influence and so we look forward to building our relationship with Kazakhstan." In this way she rejected Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's recent claim of privileged relations with countries on the periphery of Russia. What stands behind this warning to Moscow is a justifiable concern that Russia wants to develop a monopoly on pipelines delivering energy, particularly natural gas, to Europe.

Some of the current tension with Russia was unavoidable; some was needlessly provoked by this administration's disregard for Russian interests. To undo the unnecessary tensions, the next president will need to be even more agile than Rice.