My choice for biggest Bush mistake: US policy towards Russia.

Why? Because the administration's aggressively anti-Russian policy has deprived the US - and the world - of a huge opportunity for orderly political and economic growth and change. The 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union opened wide the door for the former Cold War adversaries to cooperate in a number of critical fields:

• Energy : Not only does Russia have large resources of oil and gas, but its immense territory in all probability still holds large undiscovered reserves. It could thus become a large long-term energy supplier to the US, alleviating dependence on OPEC and the Middle East and indirectly stabilizing energy markets.
• Trade: Russia has huge infrastructure needs, offering nearly unlimited possibilities for American exports of goods and technology. It is in fact the one market where our energy imports can be offset by reciprocal trade.
• Nuclear proliferation: US and Russia between them hold the vast majority of nuclear warheads and delivery systems. A non-proliferation policy that does not include Russia as an active participant is crippled and has little chance of success
• Terrorism: As the US, Russia has suffered heavily from terrorism. It has extensive contacts and intelligence in the Middle East and central Asia, resources which would greatly enhance American efforts in this field.

In the past Russia has shown willingness to enter into agreements and genuine cooperation in all the above areas, and it demonstrated that willingness during the first decade after the Soviet collapse. Despite these promising initial steps, the Bush administration has adopted a strident anti-Russian posture, in the process reneging on commitments made by previous administrations. This policy of the US included overt and covert fomenting of "regime change" on Russia's periphery, diplomatic slights, a negative press campaign against the Russian government, NATO enlargement eastward and the securing of military bases in former Soviet territory.

This campaign has been justified by the theory that Russia is backsliding towards Stalinist ways, an argument that deserves some discussion.

First, the idea of "backsliding": the assumption here is that in 1991 Russia has become a full democracy, and that Mr. Putin and his KGB cronies are now pulling it backwards. In fact, regardless of appearances, no instantaneous transition to democracy ever occurred. Instead a process of gradual change has begun and will be underway for at least another couple of decades.

The reality is that the Soviet system was all-embracing. The Communist party controlled not just the government and security services, but every aspect of Russian life: the economy, sports, the arts, scientific research, finances, manufacturing and all aspects of foreign policy. Every manager, government official, scientist, engineer, banker and policeman above the age of 40 (and that means the majority of people in the prime of their careers) were born and raised within the Soviet system. These people cannot be replaced except by slow generational change. In most cases they do not need to be replaced. But, willing or not, they carry within them some of the Soviet mentality, and this will not change overnight. In reality the amazing fact about Russia is not that it could be "sliding backwards" in some areas, but that it is actually moving forward in so many more fields, i.e. property and land ownership,  entrepreneurial freedom, ability to travel, freedom of speech and information, just to name a few.

Within this context US policy has been mostly counter-productive. It has encouraged the most conservative elements in Russia to clamp down and foster a siege mentality, which in the end is beneficial to neither Russia nor the US.