TEL AVIV – In his famous “X” article, published in 1947, George F. Kennan argued that the Soviet Union’s hostility toward the United States was virtually inexorable, given that it was rooted not in a classic conflict of interest between great powers, but in a deep-seated nationalism and insecurity. The same could be said of the current conflict between Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the West: It is, at root, a collision between the West’s supposedly universal values and Russia’s quest for a distinct identity.