Many of my Ukrainian readers and viewers today ask what guided me when I warned that if the Russian-Ukrainian war could not be stopped within four years, we would become witnesses—and participants—in a new major confrontation. Some insist that what we are seeing is merely a coincidence of events, that the United States and Israel would have attacked Iran anyway—and that the Russian-Ukrainian war has nothing to do with it.

This perception of reality once again reminds us how difficult it is to grasp the logic of real processes even for those who stand at their epicenter—let alone for outside observers. In Israel, Russia’s war against Ukraine was immediately declared “not our war.” Israeli diplomats and journalists told me this directly in the very first weeks after Putin’s full-scale invasion. My reminders that Iran was not accidentally supplying Russia with Shahed drones, that Ukraine was turning into a testing ground for Iranian military capabilities, convinced no one. Even October 7, 2023, changed little—although it was obvious that Iran, still allied with Russia, stood behind the attack on Israel and the events that followed.

Now it is Ukraine’s turn to risk falling into the same illusion. Many here may be convinced that the war between the United States and Israel against Iran is “a different war,” one that merely distracts the world’s attention from Ukraine. And it would be dishonest to deny that it does distract. It may also create a dangerous shortage of air defense systems and help Russia replenish its budget through higher oil revenues.

And yet this is one and the same war—a war of the world’s major powers for influence and dominance.

Russia, having lost the Cold War and having been forced to accept the independence of its former possessions, seeks revenge through brute force, aiming to restore its dominant role in Europe and preserve influence in other regions, particularly the Middle East. China, which became an economic superpower largely thanks to the outcome of the Cold War, now seeks political influence commensurate with its economic weight—as envisioned by the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. The United States, which for decades served as the vanguard of the collective West, is attempting to use this position to contain China and reinforce its own global influence. Meanwhile, China and Russia both seek to push America out.

In such circumstances, confrontation is inevitable. Attacks on those who are either Western allies or aspire to be are equally inevitable. Back in the 1990s, I warned that if Ukraine sought not merely to declare independence but to become a genuinely independent state with its own foreign policy, conflict with Russia would not be long in coming. And I was not alone in this warning: the Kremlin issued a relevant statement on the very day Ukraine proclaimed its independence.

The situation with Israel is equally transparent. From the very day of its creation, it has been regarded as an illegal, illegitimate state by much of the Arab world and nearly all of the so-called Global South. Influential countries such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Indonesia still do not officially recognize it.

We are speaking about attacks on countries whose disappearance from the political map of the world would not provoke universal outrage. For its enemies, Israel is simply an illegitimate entity on Palestinian land. For those willing to overlook Russian ambitions, Ukraine is merely a fragment of Russia that inexplicably declared independence. One can look at a world map and identify other “vulnerable” states. Take Taiwan, for example: many consider China’s claims legitimate. Had Xi Jinping succeeded in a blitzkrieg, the world might have done little more than shrug.

But no blitzkriegs are taking place—and they will not—because in a global confrontation such rapid victories are almost impossible.

The paradox is that the very American president who understands Iran’s objectives toward Israel is not prepared to fully grasp Russia’s objectives toward Ukraine and the true ambitions of China, which assists both Tehran and Moscow. This failure of strategic vision creates the conditions for a potential U.S. defeat in the global confrontation—regardless of America’s immense capabilities.

To win—and even to survive—it is necessary to change the optics of war.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)