Andrei Martyanov has answered my question.

I agree with everything Martyanov says. But I believe my question remains unanswered.

Probably it is my fault. Perhaps I framed the question so sharply that it came across as an attack on Putin's level-headed policy. Also, my use of the phrase "turning the other cheek" could have implied denigration of Putin rather than my admiration for his level-headedness and humane approach to his great responsibility.

I understand Putin's policy. I agree with Martyanov that it is the only policy that makes sense. I also agree with Martyanov that the correlation of forces has changed dramatically in Russia's favor. But to use another phrase, I am concerned about the slip between the cup and the lip. I think something needs to be done to halt Washington's provocations before they become so extreme that matters get out of hand.

Historically, provocations do tend to get out of hand, more often than not.

Perhaps Russia has prevented, by exposing it in advance, the false flag chemical attack that Washington had in the works in order to have an excuse for another missile attack on Syria, an attack designed by Washington to disrupt Syria's elimination of the last stronghold of Washington's proxy army in Syria. That Washington would actually use an obvious false flag chemical incident to attack Syria a second time in defiance of Russia does not indicate that Washington understands that its power is not what it was. I agree with Martyanov that Washington should understand that, but I am not sure Washington does.

Further evidence that Washington does not understand the new correlation of power is the political, academic, and media treatment of Professor Stephen Cohen, perhaps America's premier Russian scholar. Cohen sees all the dangers in the current level of tensions that I see, and he is denigrated as a Putin stooge for his balanced analysis. I am on the CIA- or George Soros- or National Endowment for Democracy- or Israel Lobby-funded PropOrNot list of "Russian agents/dupes." Indeed, Martyanov's own excellent book, which I recently reviewed, explains the extraordinary myths in which Washington lives. I doubt Washington escaped, as Martyanov seems to think, from its self-made Matrix between 2014 and 2018. Countries as full of themselves as America is don't sober up in four years without a revealing military defeat or an economic collapse for which no fix is available. Indeed, Martyanov begins his excellent book with Alexis de Tocqueville's analysis of American hubris in 1837. Hubris is the definition of American existence.

Or consider this for example: The open wound of Novorussia is festering. Washington is pouring arms into Ukraine. I think that Putin left this wound open, because he did not want to enable Washington's propaganda to inflame Europe's fears of more "annexations" on top of the alleged "annexation" of Crimea. This was a sound decision consistent with Martynov's explanation, but it is an opportunity for the neoconservatives who Martyanov correctly understands to have a tendency to be unrealistic. It is those unrealistic times that are dangerous.

I don't think Washington has yet lost its hubris. My reference