Among the many hot takes being offered regarding the possibility of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, one of the more fringe interpretations was put forward by Anne Applebaum at The Atlantic this weekend. And I’m not using the word “fringe” in a derogatory way here. Rather than talking about the failure of the White House or NATO’s leadership to defuse the situation, Applebaum contends that Putin’s actions were entirely predictable and a continuation of patterns that we’ve seen for decades. If the west has failed at anything here, it was the missed opportunity for our Diplomats to very publicly alert the world as to who the real bad guys are in this scenario.

Applebaum begins by deriding British foreign secretary Liz Truss, who recently met with Russian Foreign Secretary Sergey Lavrov to discuss the Ukraine situation. Truss walked away from the conversation with no progress to show for her efforts and a muted repetition of the White House’s talking points about “severe” economic consequences if Russia moves into Ukraine. For his part, Lavrov was insulting and condescending, talking down to Truss and employing aggression and sarcasm in his public remarks after the meeting. In this, Applebaum notes, he is acting much the same as Vladamir Putin does when meeting with foreign leaders. But then she gets down to the meat of the issue. We’re wasting time in trying to negotiate with Putin and figure out “what he really wants.” The failure here was the west’s seeming inability to believe Putin when he basically tells us precisely how much of a sociopath he really is.

Tragically, the Western leaders and diplomats who are right now trying to stave off a Russian invasion of Ukraine still think they live in a world where rules matter, where diplomatic protocol is useful, where polite speech is valued. All of them think that when they go to Russia, they are talking to people whose minds can be changed by argument or debate. They think the Russian elite cares about things like its “reputation.” It does not.

In fact, when talking to the new breed of autocrats, whether in Russia, China, Venezuela, or Iran, we are now dealing with something very different: People who aren’t interested in treaties and documents, people who only respect hard power. Russia is in violation of the Budapest Memorandum, signed in 1994, guaranteeing Ukrainian security. Do you ever hear Putin talk about that? Of course not. He isn’t concerned about his untrustworthy reputation either: Lying keeps opponents on their toes. Nor does Lavrov mind if he is hated, because hatred gives him an aura of power.

I’ll give credit to Applebaum for recognizing what I have taken to calling the 21st-century Axis of Evil. She notes that China, Venezuela, and Iran are just as bad and equally uninterested in engaging in meaningful diplomacy or working toward mutually beneficial solutions. (She left out Turkey, but that’s forgivable.) She describes the moment we find ourselves in today as being, “a failure of the Western imagination, a generation-long refusal, on the part of diplomats, politicians, journalists, and intellectuals, to understand what kind of state Russia was becoming and to prepare accordingly.”

I’m forced to agree. When Putin took the Crimean Peninsula, he had no fear of any serious resistance from the west. And he likely has no fear of it now, assuming he really does plan to invade. Joe Biden has repeatedly assured Putin in public that there won’t be a military response. That’s the only thing that he would respect, and China is quickly learning the same lesson as they inch closer and closer to taking Taiwan by force.

We’ve spent a generation treating Russia as if its leaders hold the same values we do, seeking peace and prosperity for all, with only minor ideological differences between us to be ironed out. They do not hold those values. They only seek the contentment of their citizens to the degree that allows them to maintain power and expand their personal wealth. The country is ruled by kleptocrats, but no one else seems to want to say that aloud. We made a similarly grave error over the past few decades by believing that the Chinese Communist Party would come around to valuing human rights and democratic values if we could only help them engage in enough capitalism. In response, they dominated the global supply chain and we’re now paying a steep price for that error as well. The question today should be how far the United States and our allies should be willing to go to correct this course.

For some bonus reading on Monday and a completely different point of view, check out David Shipler’s column at the Washington Monthly. Shipler also blames the west for the current situation in Ukraine, but for a totally different reason. He claims that we’ve been breaking our promises to Russia since the 90s, starting with Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. That’s a seriously hot take if I’ve ever seen one and pretty much reinforces what Applebaum is trying to point out. We continue to take some of the blame ourselves in the mistaken belief that the Axis of Evil has any interest in fairness or equality.