Stuermer was ill-advised to write the book in English. Although his command of the language is exceptional, the difficulties of writing about a third country, especially one with complicated orthography, are formidable. Perhaps because they were rushing to get it out while Russia is in the news, the publishers appear not to have copy-edited the manuscript at all. In his native German, Stuermer is a fine stylist. One would not know it from this book, which exemplifies the cliché-strewn dangers of writing in a non-native language. With a bit more time, the author might have provided some footnotes; indeed the discipline of backing up his impressions about Russian energy policy and demography with some sources and facts would have saved him from many garbles, misapprehensions and lacunae.

But such shortcomings are trivial compared with the really serious charges against the book. Indeed, they would be forgivable if Stuermer were to conclude his book by warning his fellow-countrymen that they had got Russia wrong. It poses a profound challenge to the security and wellbeing of the continent and this threat is made graver still by the greed and complacency of his compatriots. He might even have argued, defensibly although in my view wrongly, that though Russian revanchism and corruption are not a huge problem for Germany itself, they do pose a threat to his country's allies in the EU and Nato, and that Germany is therefore honour-bound to defend them.

Not a bit of it. Despite having outlined the criminality and chauvinism of the ex-KGB regime in the Kremlin, and conceded that we are, if not back in a new Cold War, at least in a "new Great Game", Stuermer backs away from drawing the obvious conclusion - that we are involved in a contest with dangerous people who want to harm us. Sometimes, this will be through outright aggression (even Stuermer concedes that the Russian "assertiveness" seen in the war in Georgia was a "prelude" and that "more is to come"). More often, it will be by subverting our political and economic system to make it more pliant to their wishes.

Yet the tone is one of ineffable complacency. Russia "has not had a happy youth", he writes. Now it is behaving like a "lonely wolf". That can't last, so just give it time. We should expect snarls but not take them seriously. The big need is for some more intelligent management of clashes of interest, which are bound to occur from time to time. These are hugely outweighed by common interests in fighting the world's ills, from nuclear proliferation to piracy. The Americans need to calm down and stop pushing their interests in the Russians' back yard. The Europeans (by which he means Germany and the big countries of "old Europe") should concentrate on promoting trade and investment, thus building up the middle class which will one day run Russia in a friendly, predictable and manageable way.