WASHINGTON — In August of 2008 at the Beijing Summer Olympics President George W. Bush had a talk with President Vladimir Putin. Georgia’s anti-Moscow president, Mikheil Saakashvili, had been uttering provocative sonorities about Russia, so Russian troops marched into Georgia much as they are doing today in Crimea. Bush reminded Putin, “I’ve been warning you Saakashvili is hot-blooded.” To which Putin suavely responded, “I’m hot-blooded, too.” Bush’s rejoinder was “No, Vladimir. You’re cold-blooded.”

Well, whether the president of Russia is hot-blooded or cold-blooded or bloodless, his troops are in Crimea now, and Russia still has the same problem it had at the end of the Cold War. Its economy is not quite modern. In fact, it is sickly. Its growth rate last year was 1.3 percent, hardly capable of sustaining a modern military.