Dhaka, Aug. 22 -- So now Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have met again, this time in the former Russian territory of Alaska. As an outside observer, one could almost get the impression that time had turned back to the world before the end of the Cold War, when the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, still determined the fate of the world in haughty unity.

But the meeting was much more than a historical reminiscence. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov wore a startling garment that he thought appropriate to the occasion, and to Putin's purposes: a sweatshirt with "CCCP" (the Soviet Union's Cyrillic acronym) emblazoned across the chest. If it was a joke, there was menace behind it.

Anyone who knows the longtime Ru...