For the first time in his six-and-a-half years in power, Bush is inviting a foreign dignitary not to the White House, or the Camp David retreat, or his ranch in Texas. This meeting takes place at the home of Bush's father in Kennebunkport, Maine.

The former president's deft handling of US-Soviet relations was a hallmark of his term in office.

The White House confirmed that the 41st president will be at the house while his son entertains Putin. Although he will not take part in the official talks, the elder Bush is bound to be involved informally as the two leaders address the host of grievances that divide them.

These range from the planned US missile defence system in eastern Europe to the independence of Kosovo - both fiercely opposed by the Kremlin.

Washington complains about the erosion of democracy and human rights in Russia, and Moscow's bullying of neighbours once part of the Soviet Union. Putin has responded by likening Bush's foreign policy to that of Nazi Germany, and by offering his own missile defence project.

Few breakthroughs are expected, and no formal agreements will be announced. The most realistic goal is to defuse mutual suspicions, and restore personal relations.

The bracing surrounds of George Bush Snr's home at Walker's Point, a rocky promontory on the Atlantic coast, was where the former president used to oil the wheels of top-level diplomacy with fish trips and games of horseshoe.

Today and tomorrow, his son will be hoping to do the same. "What the President wants . . . is the ambience and the background and the life out here just as it is when our family is here, " Bush Snr told a local radio station. "You sit down, no neckties, in a beautiful house looking over the sea and talk frankly without a lot of strap-hangers and notetakers." Perhaps tactfully, the 41st president did not mention the deeper symbolism of the venue, a reminder of the moderate and multilateralist foreign policy he pursued, so conspicuously abandoned by the 43rd president.

But such considerations may make little difference, even though neither side has an interest in allowing relations to worsen further. Today's tensions reflect both Russia's recovery of power, thanks largely to its immense energy riches, and its eternally suspicious view of the outside world.

This is not a new Cold War. Rather, after the humiliation of the chaos and economic collapse of the immediate post-Soviet period, Russia has reemerged - as have China and India - as a force to be reckoned with. Like these later, it is not an enemy of the US but it is a major power, and determined to be treated as such.