Putin is the dark side come alive without apology in a self-congratulatory age when he supposedly should not exist. That his economy is unsustainable, that his corruption ruined the promise of a new Russia, that his oppression is nihilistic, that we are mostly right, he usually wrong, bothers him not at all.

If Putin has any utility at all, it is the faint suggestion that even he would prefer — even believe that he himself might be better off — if we were more resolute. Putin is almost Milton’s Satan — as if, in his seductive evil, he yearns for clarity, perhaps even a smackdown, if not just for himself, for us as well. He is not the better man than Obama but, again like Milton’s Satan, the more interesting, if only because he reminds of us of our own limitations.

He ends up existing to warn us in the West of what we are not, and to demonstrate that in a strange sort of way our loud principles without toughness are not much better than his toughness without principles. In that regard, he gives us a valuable look into ourselves — we the hollow men, the stuffed men of dry voices and whispers.