(CNN) -- President Obama's favorite television shows
include "House of Cards" and "Mad Men." One can imagine
that when his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin wants to
kick back and relax, all he will need to do is turn on the
nightly news and watch the latest reports from the NATO
Summit in Wales.

Putin can listen as NATO leaders roll out the latest iteration
of their bold responses to his annexation of Crimea and his
invasion of Ukraine.
Imagine how he'll be tickled as NATO leaders fall all over
themselves trying to find ways to refer to his sending
Russian troops into a neighboring country without actually
calling it an invasion.
Imagine him, no doubt lying shirtless on a polar bear skin
that he single-handedly separated from its original owner,
laughing as NATO unveils the stockpile of strong adjectives
that have been its principle weapons in containing the
Kremlin's aggression.

Then, as NATO's Secretary General Anders Fogh
Rasmussen rolls out what they call in the
political biz "the big deliverable" of the summit
-- a Readiness Action Plan that will make 4,000
troops available within two days of a Russian
incursion into a member state -- one can only
hope that Kremlin doctors are standing by,
because Putin could injure himself laughing.
First of all, NATO members are already
supposed to be guaranteed protection by virtue of their very membership. One would imagine that each had in mind something considerably more robust and more rapid than this middling unit the alliance has dreamed up.

This is little more than a tepid response gesture, a sign not
of strength, but one that shows how the world's most
powerful alliance is now utterly adrift.
There will be many speeches suggesting that NATO is re-
energized by Putin's threat. There will be lots of self-
congratulations on the effectiveness of economic sanctions levied against the Russians. There will be talk of new mega-sanctions that will really keep them in line. But Putin will sit there watching, perhaps munching on pieces of deep fried Siberian tiger that he killed with his bare hands, as he contemplates that everything he wanted he got, and that all he wants he can get -- at a low, low price. No one even discusses whether Putin can keep
Crimea, which he claimed without a shot being
fired. Whether he ultimately annexes Eastern
Ukraine or simply drives home the message that
it has deep ties to Russia and that Moscow will
expect to be consulted regarding its fate, he
knows he is in the negotiating position of
strength.

He knows for two reasons. First, he sees that
neither the United States nor its European allies
have much appetite to stand up to him. Time
after time as he tested them -- in Georgia, in
Ukraine, in Syria -- they grumbled and then
blinked. They are too self-absorbed and caught
up in domestic problems. And frankly, they
don't care that much about Georgia or Ukraine
or Syria.

As a consequence, Putin can watch the NATO show and
enjoy it for what it is: a diversion. The rhetoric might get
heated. Some might suggest that he, for all his cool
calculation and his so far effective gambits, is the mad man
in this scenario. But watching the current version of this
superannuated, divided, leaderless alliance, he knows that
when it comes to standing up to him in Ukraine, NATO is the
house of cards.