Tuesday's summit in Washington between President George Bush and Putin offers hope on several counts for a more peaceful world. The impetus for the new and closer relationship between Washington and Moscow came from America's new global war against terrorism and Russia, with its horrific record in Chechnya, is a strange bedfellow. But the world as a whole stands to gain from Russia becoming a partner rather than a spoiler in current efforts to bring the world's trading, financial and security systems under the rule of transparent international disciplines.

Above all, successful Russian efforts to prevent sale or theft of its nuclear, chemical and microbiological weapons technologies are critically important for the rest of this century and for the war against terrorism. Success also depends on Russian businesses becoming more lawful, faster Russian economic growth, the spread of democracy to its various regions and a more confident security relationship with the US.

Russia needs help from the US and Europe for all of those elements. But that help cannot be given without guarantees that Putin not only firmly believes in friendship rather than rivalry with the West, but also has the political clout within Russia to impose his writ from Moscow to the Pacific Ocean. These are very tall orders but worth pursuing for the sake of a stable global family of nations.

World trade expansion can boost world economic growth only against a background of investor and consumer confidence that we are moving toward more peaceful global and regional relations. The key relationship along that path is the one between the US and Russia, which although a shadow of the Soviet Union, has great potential of becoming a disruptive influence if it continues to lurch from one domestic crisis to another.

The US cannot do much to influence how Russia handles its internal affairs, but it can demonstrate wisdom by placing its bilateral relationship in the context of the needs of the world as a whole. What the world does not need is a Putin frustrated by Washington's unwillingness to be flexible and its preference for bending a weakened Russia to its will rather than meeting Putin half way. That would push Putin into closer relations with China, greater distrust of the US presence in South and Central Asia, and more stubbornness on issues affecting the expansion of NATO and the European Union into Central and East Europe.

The immediate roadblocks to a more fruitful relationship with Russia are Washington's desire to change the START and ABM arms controls treaties on the grounds that they are the products of a Cold War that no longer exists, and Washington's desire to build an umbrella against missile attacks from so-called rogue states such as North Korea and Iraq. Putin, a former KGB operative, realizes that a major reason for the Soviet Union's collapse was its impoverishment caused by the arms race with America. He sees the missile shield program as another such Trojan horse that will stop Russia from ever becoming a successful economic power.

Putin is trying to keep an open mind on these security issues but could do with a little flexibility on the part of Bush. That flexibility is warranted because the greater need today is to integrate Russia into the international community as a constructive member dedicated to an orderly and peaceful world, rather than as a secret proliferator of challenges to such a world. Russia's record of the last decade is not good. Its weapons, including nuclear fuels and chemical and microbiological compounds, are thought to have been stolen or sold to unsavory elements. Its Chechnya campaigns have been models of cruelty and systematic violations of human rights and its other interventions are creating instability in at least four countries that used to be Soviet republics, including Georgia. The lawlessness of its mafias and business methods within Russia are legendary.

Yet, there is ample room for fruitful and peaceful relationships. Russia owns the second largest reserves of oil and gas in the world.

Its relationship with India can be a moderating influence in the regional tensions over Kashmir and its historical expertise on China can help to better integrate that giant into the world economy with less upheaval. As the terrorist attacks of September 11 have shown, the West is on the edge of an erosion of its power in world affairs as other peoples rise up to confront its values and dominance. The billion-strong Islamic world and the 2.5 billion Chinese and Indians are at the leading edge of that challenge. To prevent those challenges from degenerating into instability, the US and Europe will have to extend more genuinely open hands of partnership and listen to others as intently as they lecture. The Bush-Putin summit is a good place to start.