BERLIN - For 19 years, the West (America and Europe) has been putting off answering a critical strategic question: what role should post-Soviet Russia actually play globally and in the European order? Should it be treated as a difficult partner or a strategic adversary?

Even when this choice became critically acute during the crisis of Russia's short war against Georgia last summer, the West didn't provide a conclusive answer to this question. If you follow most East Europeans, the United Kingdom and the Bush administration, the answer is "strategic adversary." But most West Europeans prefer "difficult partner." These seemingly mutually exclusive alternatives have one thing in common: neither of them has been thought through to the end.