Miraculously, against all odds, Russian President Vladimir Putin is winning World War Three — just not on the bloody battlefields of Ukraine.

In Ukraine, his battered military — after three-and-a-half years of his Special Military Operation and nearly 1.1 million casualties — remains mired in static trench warfare like World War One. But he is winning anyway in a variety of domains that are global in reach and nature.

First and foremost, Putin is well on his way to achieving his initial goals: ending U.S. global hegemony and destroying the post-World War II global order. Consequently, NATO is imperiled and the United Nations Security Council rendered incapable of ensuring global peace. Alarmingly, the emerging vacuum is enabling the rise of Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s multipolar world.

Their meeting in China on Sept. 1 gave us a chilling and eye-opening glimpse of this new world order in the making. More than 20 major global leaders met alongside them at the China- and Moscow-backed Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Notably, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico – heads of NATO member-states — participated as guests. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi — a primary purchaser of Russian oil — was there as well. (India joined that now ten-member alliance in 2017.)

Conspicuously absent were the U.S. and its transatlantic allies.

Equally ominous was Beijing’s submission of a working concept paper titled "Global Governance Initiative." The proposal — quickly overshadowed by the 80th Chinese Victory Day Parade in........

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