Their discussions focused on missile defense, addressing recent provocative moves by North Korea and the use of missiles by Hezbollah in its conflict with Israel.

The choice of location is interesting. Alaska, militarily speaking, is the land of early-warning radars -- and Fort Greely, where the meeting took place, is home to the bulk of the operational interceptors for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, a key element of U.S. ballistic missile defense.

While Russia is not particularly thrilled about the U.S. ballistic missile defense program, it is not terribly concerned about it, either. Russia is focused internally at the moment, and the limited U.S. defense shield, once fielded, will be able to reliably and redundantly engage perhaps five missiles launched simultaneously.

Ivanov, though, again raised the possibility of a unilateral withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, quipping that such a move would not be without precedent -- a reference to the 2002 U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty. The United States and the Soviet Union signed the INF treaty on the elimination of short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic and cruise missiles in 1987. But because the treaty specified land-based missiles, both sides continued to field substantial sea-based and air-launched cruise missile arsenals operating within those ranges.

Russia today has a much stronger interest in missiles of intermediate range than does the United States, which cannot use them to hit anything farther away than Canada. By comparison, an intercontinental ballistic missile can cover some of the same range, but not all of it; and it is slower to respond because of its much higher apogee.

From a strategic perspective, there are a number of reasons for Moscow to want short- to intermediate-range missiles. Russia is surrounded by them: Iran, Pakistan, India, China and North Korea all field missiles of medium-to-intermediate range. Short-, medium- and intermediate-range missiles might also be useful for political purposes, serving a stern warning to Russia's neighbors on the western and southern border where most of Moscow's geopolitical priorities lie.

All of this is nothing new in U.S.-Russian defense talks; these discussions are essentially a rehash of perennial issues. More startling than anything else that we noticed in the meeting between Ivanov and Rumsfeld was the sheer politeness of it. This is the United States and Russia after all -- two states that have been circling each other like a pair of hyenas for the better part of two generations.

That reality hasn't changed, but the rhetoric at this meeting confirmed that the two countries are just too busy for a significant confrontation.

The United States is being sucked deeper into increasingly intractable conflicts in Iraq and with Iran. Add in the midterm elections in November and it is difficult to imagine a scenario where the U.S. foreign policy team will have any free bandwidth before 2007.

As it happens, 2007 also is the year when Russia will hold parliamentary elections and the leadership of the administration will transition to Putin's chosen successor: either Ivanov or First Deputy Prime Minster Dmitry Medvedev. Considering the mix of demographic, economic and security challenges laid out before it, Moscow will not be looking to add any major foreign policy complications to the transition.

Rumsfeld and Ivanov discussed topics that, normally, would have the potential to cause upheavals in the international system. At the moment both powers just have more immediate things to worry about than each other.