Do Russia's western war games deliver a threat, or just a message?

President Vladimir Putin watched through a cool drizzle in Russia's far western reaches Monday, just 70 miles from his country’s border with the European Union, as Russian tanks and paratroopers battled fictional extremist groups. Fighter jets and missiles screamed overhead.

The confrontation was just one part of “Zapad 2017,” a huge military exercise involving both Russia and Belarus that has caused some hand-wringing in parts of NATO, not least its eastern capitals.

While the war games are nothing out of the ordinary – a regular effort by the Kremlin to exercise and train its forces, as all militaries tend to do – there is also little doubt that Moscow intends a message to be sent loud and clear to

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