Russia has suffered a breathtaking series of foreign policy defeats this week.

On Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution which, essentially, accuses the Russian government of state-sponsored murder in the killing of KGB defector Alexander Litvinenko two years ago.

Then on Thursday, at its summit meeting in Bucharest, Romania, not only did NATO announce it would admit yet two more countries from Russia’s orbit, Albania and Croatia, but it issued a stinging rebuke to Vladimir Putin on missile defense. NATO strongly backed the American plan to install defensive missile systems in former Soviet states like Czech Republic and Poland, and issued a formal statement which “calls on Russia to drop its objections to the system and to accept U.S. and NATO offers to cooperate on building it.” Putin has vehemently opposed the plan.

NATO held back on granting formal application status to Ukraine and Georgia, but appeared to have done so as part of a clever PR gambit designed to take the wind out of Russia’s sails concerning missile defense. Bloomberg reported that “Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer sought to soften the blow on Ukraine and Georgia by saying the alliance is committed to bringing them in, even if the timing is uncertain. ‘This can never be a question of whether,’ De Hoop Scheffer said at a joint briefing with Bush yesterday.” This guarantee was actually more than the two countries had expected from the summit, and they were jubilant.

Earlier in the week, President Bush visited Ukraine and vigorously called for NATO to embrace it. He told Urkaine’s president Victor Yushchenko, who was poisoned with Dioxin as soon as he began agitating for NATO membership in what many see as a Russian plot: “Your nation has made a bold decision and the United States strongly supports your request. In Bucharest this week, I will continue to make America’s position clear: we support MAP for Ukraine and Georgia. My stop here should be a clear signal to everybody that I mean what I say: It’s in our interest for Ukraine to join.” The two leaders are shown above shaking hands in front of an American flag.

Recently, two different books by Russia correspondents for major newspapers have appeared under the title “The New Cold War.” These volumes, by Briton Edward Lucas of the Economist and Canadian Mark MacKinnon of the Globe & Mail, seem to confirm what events are telling us, that those who thought the Russian threat had vanished spoke too soon. The world has obviously learned its lesson from its first experience, and does not intend to let things get out of hand this time.

Given how important it is to Russians that they not find themselves “encircled” by hostile enemies, it’s hard to understand why Putin continues to maintain such high approval levels in the polls. Indeed, it’s hard to understand why Russians would choose to elect a proud KGB spy like Putin in the first place. Rather predictably, instead of building constructive partnerships with other nations, the Putin regime seems bent on creating new friction at every opportunity.