If anyone has benefited from the Paris attacks, it is the Kremlin. In the immediate aftermath of the massacre, the great powers of the West resolved to crush Islamic State (IS) at all costs, and as Russia was already bombing Syria, Western democracies deemed it a natural ally.

From an international pariah punished for the brazen annexation of Crimea and stealthy intervention in eastern Ukraine, practically overnight Moscow turned into a respectable pillar of world order others wooed.

France has commenced military cooperation with the Kremlin, and though the United States exercises more restraint, during the Group of Twenty summit in Turkey, Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama invited cameras to catch them talking and smiling. In foreign policy terms, this means a new start.