President George W. Bush famously underestimated Vladimir Putin. Asked about his impressions of the Russian president, the then-US president claimed that he had “looked into Putin’s eyes” and “saw his soul.” His secretary of state, Colin Powell, said that he, too, had looked into Putin’s eyes “and I saw the KGB.” Bush found out what was behind Putin’s eyes a little too late. Toward the end of Bush’s second term, in 2008, Putin’s Russia invaded the neighboring country of Georgia... Ever since Putin repeated his Georgian maneuver on a much grander scale in Ukraine in 2022, there are still people...