Joshua Yaffa: The leader Russia deserves

Vladimir Putin is perhaps the most puzzled over and least understood world leader. It's hard to resist the temptation to psychoanalyze him - the Kremlin's inclination for ever-tighter control at home and its brash behavior abroad surely must be rooted in Mr. Putin’s desire to protect his apocryphal $40 billion personal fortune, or perhaps in his theatrical sense of vanity, which has produced famous images of him descending in a mini-submarine or riding shirtless on a horse.