Russian foreign policy also has an internal logic: It is intended to support the legitimacy of the current regime. Russia has no important economic or geostrategic interests in Syria, but the fall of another dictator might send a message of encouragement to its own people. With Snowden, the Russians are treading carefully. Although the temptation to use him as an anti-American propaganda tool must be very strong, they haven’t praised him too loudly, perhaps for fear of encouraging the hacking of their own government’s documents.

This incident underscores that no common worldview can be relied upon in dealing with this Russian government; there is no agreement about international rules of the game, let alone the rule of law. That is, of course, the case with many countries, but since the 1990s many in Washington have maintained the illusion that there can or should be a special relationship between the two former superpowers. Bill Clinton’s decision to let Russia join the Group of Eight was the result of one such outreach. The Obama administration’s ill-fated “reset” of Russian-American relations was another.

That doesn’t mean there can be no resolution: It is perfectly possible that, as in Cold War days, Russian authorities will seek to trade Snowden for something or someone else they want, whether a spy or a criminal. It is possible that they will detain him for a while to see if he can be useful. By the time you read this, they might have just let him go elsewhere, as the Chinese did, to rid themselves of the problem. But they won’t send him home as a gesture of goodwill or a matter of principle, as Kerry seems to hope. We can expect that only from some of our allies, and Russia isn’t one at all.