World War III will not start with an exchange of nuclear weapons. It won’t ignite from the jostling of great empires. Nor will it result from a single madman (or two) bent on taking over the world.

It won’t be any of those things because World War III has already begun.

The current global conflagration began not with the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran. It began with the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. This blatant land grab was not only a massive war crime. Russian President Vladimir Putin also had another target in mind: the rules-based order.

This attack on international law was the Fort Sumter moment for World War III. By invading Ukraine—and then systematically breaking one article of the Geneva Convention after another—Putin effectively seceded from the international community.

There have been other major violations of international law since the end of the Cold War, including the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the U.S. drone attacks in various countries, Israel’s multiple incursions into Lebanon, Rwanda’s invasion of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and so on.

But none of these attacks, however abhorrent, challenged the fundamental structure of the rules-based order like Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Putin didn’t try to enlist the UN on his side, as Bush did in Iraq and Obama did in Libya. He didn’t seize land temporarily to create a buffer zone as Israel has attempted to do in Lebanon. Rather, he was determined to force regime change in Kyiv and undermine the entire European security system.

In Iran, Donald Trump is simply following Putin’s game plan. Like Putin, he expected a quick victory, so much so that he didn’t arrange military escorts for tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz or prepare for an emergency drawdown from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to offset the inevitable spike in gas prices. Like Putin, he didn’t bother to rally the UN to his side or even build a coalition of the willing. Like Putin, he expected (and continues to expect) to install a puppet government that can do his bidding.

Also like Putin, who took Russia out of the Council of Europe and the UN Human Rights Council, Trump has withdrawn from as many international institutions as he can, from the World Health Organization to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Russia and the United States have become........

© Eurasia Review