PARIS — NATO leaders spent a great deal of time at their 60th anniversary summit meeting last weekend trying to overcome Turkish opposition to a new secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who will take charge of the alliance in August. But little time was spent on the more important issue of the Russian bear, sitting outside the room.

In the group’s “Declaration on Alliance Security,” issued April 4 as a blueprint for rethinking NATO for a new century, there is only one paragraph on Russia, which describes the status quo and states emptily, “We stand ready to work with Russia to address the common challenges we face.”

The Obama administration talks of pressing the “reset button” with Moscow, but NATO remains sharply split over how quickly to get back to normal business with a Russia that seems to be an aggressive outlier, refusing to retreat from occupied parts of Georgia, intimidating opposition figures and breaking up protests, and using its enormous gas supplies as a political weapon against a NATO aspirant, Ukraine.

“It is no secret that when it comes to Russia, there are a wide range of views within NATO, from the very cautious to the forward-leaning,” said Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the current secretary-general. “Until we narrow that range, it will be difficult to engage Russia effectively.” But, he continued, Russia too “needs to decide whether it recognizes NATO’s desire for partnership, or whether it will continue to look at NATO through the prism of a Cold War that is long behind us.”

De Hoop Scheffer put in the nicest terms NATO’s contradictory positions toward Russia. Organized as a bulwark against Soviet expansion in Europe, NATO did not disband at 40, when the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union soon followed. Instead, NATO expanded to the former Soviet-bloc countries of Eastern Europe and beyond, to include the Baltic nations, which Moscow had annexed, and it now wants to expand into the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia.

In a recent article in the journal The National Interest, Richard Betts of the Council on Foreign Relations and Columbia University describes NATO’s own identity crisis, with three competing functions and self-images: first, “the enforcer, the pacifier of conflicts beyond the region’s borders”; second, “the gentleman’s club for … the West”; and third, “the residual function of an anti-Russia alliance.”

Betts compares NATO’s personality disorder with the film “The Three Faces of Eve” and calls it “a potentially corrosive mix, particularly as they relate to Russia,” with the potential to further divide the United States from its European allies. While former Soviet-bloc states are much more wary of Moscow, “Old Europe” is more sanguine — and both are dependent on Russian energy, especially natural gas.

The European Union is vital for Russia, too. It accounts for roughly half of Russia’s two-way trade and 80 percent of its exports, while providing 75 percent of foreign investment, according to figures cited at a Berlin conference of the American Council on Germany and the German Council on Foreign Affairs.

Russia has responded with a mixture of bluster and, lately, some conciliatory words. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has described the collapse of the Soviet Union as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century, and President Dmitry Medvedev has insisted that Russia reserves “a zone of privileged interests” covering the post-Soviet space. But a Russia badly hit by the economic crisis has welcomed President Barack Obama’s change of tone.

“Atmospherics help, and the noises are better now than for a long time,” said Andrew Kuchins, director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, pointing to an agreement to negotiate on the most concrete and easiest problem between Washington and Moscow: strategic arms reduction, which could lead to more complicated conversations on missile defense and especially Iran.

Still, Kuchins noted, Russia is pressing for fundamental change in Europe. It has called for a new “security architecture” to replace NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, both of which it labels relics of the Cold War. Russia also is blocking other international organizations, like the European Court of Human Rights, all of which Moscow considers to be biased in applying standards of human rights and democracy.

Some European nations, like Poland and other former members of the Soviet bloc, think Moscow, having digested parts of Georgia, is simply trying a traditional game of playing European countries against one another and dividing Europe from Washington, while some countries, like France, Germany and Italy, think Russia’s ideas should be explored. And as usual, many Europeans fear that Obama and Washington will drive the relationship with little reference to Europe.

Ivan Soltanovskiy, Russia’s deputy ambassador to NATO, said the West should not overreact. “There is a new sense of self-assurance in Russia, but don’t confuse it with aggressive nationalism,” he said. “We see in the West a lot of mistrust of my country. But this is a self-confident Russia open to negotiation.”

The Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said last month that “NATO is not just threatening Russia”; its new security agenda, he said, includes “more and more scenarios where force could be used, not necessarily with the sanction of the United Nations.”

Russia wants “fairness,” Lavrov insisted, and it has no interest in joining NATO. Still, Russia regards NATO as a reality and wants to cooperate with it, he said, in “Afghanistan, joint control of the airspace, quite a number of things, compatibility of peace-keeping forces, a lot.”

At the summit, NATO leaders agreed, as expected, to resume regular meetings of the NATO-Russia Council, the talking shop set up in 2002 that satisfies neither side. Meetings were suspended after the brief Georgia-Russia war last August; they will restart despite the occupation of the breakaway Georgian enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

But the Russians have recently proposed two substantive topics to discuss in the council. The first, Georgia, was rejected by NATO, but the second, Afghanistan, is promising, officials indicate. Already, Moscow has agreed to let Germany resupply its NATO troops in Afghanistan by rail through Russia.

And as for Russian ideas about a new security architecture, there seems to be little substance. “After asking Moscow for two months, we got back two and a half pages of old language,” the official said. “We’re happy with the security architecture as it is. But if a major partner, Russia, has a problem, we can discuss it.”

Russia and the U.S.

• NATO: The U.S. and some NATO allies have pushed to expand the alliance into ex-Soviet republics such as Ukraine and Georgia. Moscow views it as an encroachment on its historical sphere of influence.

• Arms control: The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, a Cold War accord that cut nuclear arsenals and set up a mutual inspection system, expires Dec. 5. Both Moscow and Washington say they want to negotiate a successor treaty.

• Afghanistan: The U.S. is struggling to ensure military supply routes to Afghanistan after Kyrgyzstan said it would evict U.S. forces from an air base there — a decision the U.S. blames on Russia. Moscow, which also fears Afghan violence destabilizing Central Asia, is allowing Afghan-bound, nonlethal U.S. and NATO cargo to transit Russia, and says it may also allow weapons shipments.

• Missile defense: Russia vehemently objects to U.S. plans for a missile defense system in Eastern Europe and promises to target it with short-range missiles. Washington says the system is designed to protect Europe from potential Iranian missiles. The Obama administration has signaled it may delay deployment.

• Iran: The West suspects Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons and has protested over Russia’s assisting Iran in building its first nuclear power plant. Russia insists it is strictly a commercial deal. Moscow has given some support to U.S.-proposed U.N. Security Council sanctions against Tehran.

• Energy: Washington has supported efforts to build new export routes that bypass Russia in getting oil and gas from Central Asia and the Caucasus to Western markets. Moscow has maneuvered to stop that, signing gas deals with Central Asian countries such as Turkmenistan and reaching deals with several European Union countries that undermine proposed EU-backed pipelines.

• Trade: Russia’s is the largest economy not yet in the World Trade Organization. After years of negotiation, the U.S. is the main WTO member that has yet to sign a deal with Russia, with talks dragging on over intellectual property, financial services and other issues. President Dmitry Medvedev recently said Russia is irritated by the delays and that his country has long been ready to join up. U.S. President Barack Obama has pledged to support Moscow’s membership bid. Also, Moscow wants Washington to cancel a Soviet-era law that has restricted bilateral trade.

— The Associated Press