Most westerners have never heard or read a speech by Vladimir Putin. Why should they bother, when CNN very helpfully provides them with out-of-context soundbites on the evening news?

Russia watchers are of course well versed in Putin's excellent Valdai speeches. But really, his address at the 2007 Munich Security Conference about the erosion of international law and the dangers of using war as a "politically expedient" tool is widely considered his greatest oratorical triumph.

He was right, of course.

As Vesti explains:

Exactly 10 years ago, Vladimir Putin made a speech at the security conference in Germany. Later, it was called the "Munich Speech" in a vein similar to Churchill's Fulton Speech, which marked the beginning of the Cold War. But in Munich, Putin suggested a model of a world without wars. In fact, it was the first experience of a frank conversation with the West in decades. The speech lasted for 1 hour and 14 minutes, and caused an unprecedented response. Today, that speech is on the list of the most important dates on the pages of European newspapers. That day, Vladimir Putin, - writes Sueddeutsche Zeitung, accused his US counterpart George W. Bush of the fact that America had made the world more dangerous, and plans to create a missile defense system had triggered an arms race. Putin spoke about the mistakes of the world order after the Cold War, about imposing stereotypes of bloc thinking, and the danger of unilateralism, which lead to chaos.

It's an incredibly compelling, well presented case for a multipolar world based on respect for international law.

You can read the whole speech here.

Notice any familiar faces? Yes, there's Merkel and McCain sitting in the front row.

If they had only listened to Putin in 2007, the world would be much different today in 2017.