When you do not know what to do, you do what you know. The other day I heard an astute observer of Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin attach this aphorism to Moscow’s hostility towards the west. Confronted with the unknown, the Russian president has taken refuge in the familiar.

The thought of Nato marking retreat from Afghanistan by picking a fight with Moscow is beyond risible. The strategic challenges for Russia lie elsewhere: economic stagnation, decaying physical and social infrastructure, demographic decline and separatist insurgents. If he is looking for threats without, Mr Putin would do better to turn east.

Russia’s oil and gas revenues are fighting a losing battle against industrial decay, social deprivation and capital flight. Mr Putin’s brutal victory in the second Chechen war did not bring peace to the north Caucasus: the Kremlin is fighting a guerrilla war in Dagestan and rising Islamist extremism elsewhere.