Is Vladimir Putin a fantasist, a Fascist, or modern-day tsar?

Or Peter Dutton declaring last September that the geopolitical climate had "echoes of the 1930s".

The former defence minister described a regional environment that had become "far-more complex and far-less predictable than at any time since the Second World War".

Now Boris Johnson, extemporising from the cradle of National Socialism, has raised, "1937" albeit warily, from the sidelines of the G7 meeting in southern Germany.

The one-time biographer of Winston Churchill and the present-day holder of his office, began cautiously and then, as if cornered, rushed out the clarifying words, "and the rise of Nazi Germany" in that tell-tale cadence people adopt at such moments.

Yet there it was, a clear line drawn from the failed appeasement of Hitler in the 1930s and its bloody consequences - from Hitler's territorial expansion into ethnically German Austria and the Sudetenland, to Vladimir Putin's staged annexation of Ukraine.

From the failure of Western resolve in the late 1930s to ...what now?

Interestingly, NATO, which not so long ago was referred to as strategically "brain dead" by Emmanuel Macron, is now officially and explicitly exercised about both countries - Russia and China - and their "no-limits" allegiance.

A change welcomed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese who attended the talks.

NATO's re-awakening has been described by Allan Behm, one of Australia's foremost strategic and foreign policy intellectuals, as "the biggest re-orientation of European security in 80 years".

Still, Johnson's tremulous delivery was understandable.

Raising the West's failure to materially deter aggression in the lead up to WWII, hangs a lantern over NATO's current response which is quite similar.

Second, invoking the Nazis usually means losing the argument, as Godwin's Law dictates.

But what if such delicacy around Vladimir Putin has only bought time for a murderous dictator who actually deserves the comparison. How many innocents must he imprison, torture and kill having dispensed with independent courts? How many illegal invasions must he launch? What scale of civilian death must he warrant?

This raises further parallels: Is Putin a fantasist, a Fascist, or modern-day tsar? All three? His own take was revealed recently when he likened himself to the 18th century ruler, Peter the Great - ominously mentioning Sweden.

"Peter the Great waged the great northern war for 21 years. It would seem that he was at war with Sweden, he took something from them. He did not take anything from them, he returned [what was Russia's]," he said.

"Apparently, it is also our lot to return [Russian territory] and strengthen [the motherland]. And if we proceed from the fact that these basic values form the basis of our existence, we will certainly succeed in solving the tasks that we face."

In his 1997 essay, Cinque Scritti Morali (Five Moral Writings), the Italian intellectual Umberto Eco listed the markers of what he called "Ur-Fascism" or "eternal Fascism".

Translated to English and published under the cheesier title How to Spot a Fascist, Eco listed 14 characteristics, beginning with what he called "the cult of tradition". Such beliefs draw authority from an original truth which defies definition and can only be struggled for.

For Hitler's Nazis this took the form of an eclectic mythic paganism mixed with notions of spiritual and genetic purity, a siege mentality and purgative violence.

Leading up to his invasion, Putin invoked a greater Russia in which Ukraine as a state had never existed. Rather it was a vulgar counterfeit of modernity - an affront to true Russians. Annexation equalled restoration.

There are resonances here with Putin's self-declared lineage from Peter the Great.

MORE MARK KENNY:

Glorious imagery is common too. Putin likes pictures of himself shirtless in the wild, sometimes on horseback suggesting a purity and oneness with Mother Russia. His people are invited to conclude that modernity - ie technology, democracy, pluralism - is cowardly and corrupting. For Eco, this contradiction was always present in the Italian fascists and the German Nazis too, the latter of which skited about its unrivalled industrial prowess but rooted its ideology in the notion of "blut und boden" - blood and soil.

Then there's what Eco called "the cult of action for action's sake" in which striking out is "beautiful in itself". Think taking the Crimean peninsula in 2014 or the whole of Ukraine in 2022.

There is no certainty Putin will stop in Ukraine, which is why the studiously non-aligned governments of Finland and Sweden have suddenly opted for NATO membership.

Not that this helps Western leaders in their primary dilemma - how not to lose a war without actively attempting to win it.

Strategic war-gaming has not been a conspicuous strength of NATO to date.

Were it otherwise, the alliance might have signalled clearly to both Kyiv and Moscow more than a decade ago that Ukraine would never be admitted.

Saying this is often interpreted as appeasement, which would be a valid criticism were one of the even faintly possible outcomes from a NATO-aligned Ukraine that a humiliated Moscow would meekly accept it.

Back in the real world, something wholly more predictable occurred. Putin used the encroachment to Russia's border to concentrate fear (and his own power) domestically, and then to expand territorially sending his tanks and missiles in, albeit under a technical rationale of a special operation to "de-Nazify" the Donbass.

Just as a ruthless Fascist would.