In the space of a few weeks, Putin’s despicable act has thrown a lifeline to dying ideas. Luxuriating in Cold War certainties is in fashion again. The Russian president leads a second-rate power with no path back to the top. His archaic 19th-century  bid for regional influence is undoubtedly grotesque; yet its most damaging legacy may be the self-righteous return to the nostrums of a failed western-style internationalism—one that seeks to defend our flawed democracies as they are, rather than trying to improve them.