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WASHINGTON, March 5 — The Bush administration has decided to reach out more often and more intensively to Russia at a time when the leadership in Moscow is harshly criticizing American policy and some scholars say the United States has not sufficiently tended to an important relationship.
Plans by the United States to base elements of a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, as well as Washington’s support for expanding NATO , have compounded a sense of resentment within a Russian leadership emboldened by a flood of petrodollars .
In the wake of criticism from President Vladimir V. Putin and his inner circle of political advisers and generals, there is a growing acknowledgment among officials in Washington that the United States has not responded as rapidly or eloquently as it might have to a widespread sense of grievance in Russia.
This frustration grows from a view, broadly held in the Kremlin and among the Russian people, that the Russian leadership has accommodated many of Washington’s interests in the years since the Soviet Union fell but that Washington has not reciprocated .
Senior administration officials said their initiative called for engaging Russian leaders in private discussions to illustrate that the United States was putting extra effort into nurturing the relationship and that Russia deserved a more thorough dialogue on American foreign policy and national security plans.
A senior administration official involved in developing the strategy said that under the program, “we’ll have more consultation and we’ll do it more extensively and more intensively, so that there is a good understanding of each other’s views.”
“That is not to say that every objection and concern has to be accommodated or that they have some kind of veto over our program,” the official said. “What it does say is that we should be willing to sit down, both Russia and the United States, in a real dialogue, and have a real dialogue where we try and address the interests and concerns of both sides.”
Those mutual interests, administration officials said, include halting the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea, cooperating on counterterrorism and counternarcotics efforts and on building missile defense, which American officials argue should interest Russia, which is within striking distance of both Iran and North Korea.
Senior administration officials said the initiative would also involve a more intensive dialogue between the Russian and American militaries, a forum that might lend itself to fuller technical exchanges about Washington’s plans for missile defense.
Administration officials have said they will stand their ground in defending the United States against the substance of the Russian critique. In particular, the officials say, Russian threats will not halt Washington’s plans to place elements of a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, nor diminish Washington’s support of NATO expansion.
The stunning directness of Moscow’s recent public complaints is viewed as undermining United States-Russia relations. Equally worrisome to the administration is that the harsh tone of the Kremlin’s comments has greatly troubled European allies caught in between, especially in former Soviet client states in Eastern Europe that later joined NATO.
The new round of verbal attacks from Russia began Feb. 10 in Munich, when Mr. Putin used a keynote address at a security conference to accuse the United States of overstepping its borders to impose its will on the world through the unilateral application of military power. He criticized the American policies on missile defense and NATO expansion.
Some analysts said initially that the speech had been intended for a Russian domestic audience. But there now is a growing sense among Russia experts that the tough language was specifically aimed at the United States and the NATO allies. | 
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