And that has added to the frustration over, for example, Mr Putin's backing for Syria's government or a senior Russian general's statement that the country did not rule out the possibility of a nuclearfirststrike against missile-defence sites.
The first is that although the West is safe in the sense that the existential threat of invasion by a malevolent foreign power or a firststrike by a nuclear-armed aggressor is now vanishingly small, the rise of jihadist terrorism has left people feeling vulnerable.
If they do not, their own military men will spend an increasing amount of time worrying about the danger of losing all their nuclear might to an enemy's firststrike.