Over the past two decades, Russian President Vladimir Putin has mastered putting an end to his confrontations with the West the way he wants.

In 2008, he launched a war against Georgia and succeeded in separating the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from it with minimal damage to Russia.

Six years later, he supported the rebellion of Ukrainian separatists in the Donbass region, annexed the Crimea, and imposed the First and Second Minsk Agreements on Kyiv with minimal damage.

As for the new battle that he launched since last February 24, it seemed that Putin was unable this time to make the end he wanted.

The Russian attack had backfired in terms of confrontation with NATO.

On the one hand, it accelerated the revitalization of the transatlantic alliance after the crisis it experienced during the Trump era.

On the other hand, NATO is now planning to include Finland and Sweden

Not only did it turn into a conflict of military attrition for Russia in Ukraine, but it also evolved into a major clash with the West over the reshaping of European security rules that have prevailed since the end of the Cold War.

Putin's calculations were wrong on more than one front.

On the one hand, Russia's military failure due to major logistical problems and a miscalculation of the strength of the Ukrainian army has reduced the list of Russian targets by focusing on eastern and southern Ukraine.

On the other hand, the strong Western response against Russia through harsh sanctions and involvement in arming Kyiv was apparently not expected in Moscow before the outbreak of the conflict.

Moreover, the Russian attack backfired for Putin in terms of confrontation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO);

On the one hand, it has accelerated the revitalization of the transatlantic alliance after its crisis during the Trump era, and on the other hand, the alliance is now planning to include Finland and Sweden.

Security and an increase in military spending were the priorities of most European countries and prompted them to abandon their deep economic ties with Russia, which they used as a means of consolidating the post-Cold War peace;

Germany, which under Merkel promoted the strategy of European openness to Russia, suspended the Nord Stream 2 project to transport Russian gas to it, while the Europeans are looking for ways to get rid of absolute dependence on energy from Russia.

Although doubts about the future of the European security architecture have risen over the past two decades, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has made it a thing of the past.

Prior to the current war, the idea of ​​a struggle between East and West to reshape the international order was gaining additional momentum with the US focus on containing the rise of China in Asia during the last decade.

In parallel with the escalating US-China rivalry, the great geopolitical turmoil in Eastern Europe has created a highly polarized global environment.

The United States has been working for months to rally the Western world against Russia, and at the same time seeks to maintain the momentum of its strategy against China.

But the Russo-Ukrainian war created a particular challenge for her, and presented her with the dilemma of balancing an effective response to the Russian threat in Europe and maintaining a long-term focus on China.

Beijing and Moscow have been listed in the Pentagon's strategy since 2018 as a major concern for the United States.

In the new strategy, China is still classified as a long-term strategic adversary, focusing first on China's competition with the United States in the Indo-Pacific region, and then on Russia's interventions within Europe.

If Putin is able to win the war in Ukraine in his favor and withstand the sanctions for a longer period, this will serve as an incentive for Beijing to abandon its neutrality and engage in support of Russia and break its economic isolation

While it would be too early to predict how the Russian-Ukrainian war will end, the results it produced on the international scene become more clear with the passage of time due to the sharp and rapid changes it brought about in Western policies on more than one level.

With Washington actively engaged on the side of Europe in confronting the Russian threat, it seeks to portray the geopolitical conflict with Russia in Europe and the geopolitical rivalry with China in Asia as a struggle between East and West for global leadership.

Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, has long viewed the post-Cold War order as an unjust regime that seeks to keep it marginal in international politics.

Although China remains relatively neutral in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, it converges with Putin in a common perception hostile to Western global supremacy.

For many Western countries, Beijing's abandonment of neutrality is only a matter of time, depending on the outcome of the war, and that seems realistic.

The outcome will not only determine Russia's future as a global power, but will affect China's role as well.

If Putin is able to win his war in Ukraine and withstand the sanctions for a longer period, this will serve as an incentive for Beijing to abandon its neutrality and engage in support of Russia and break its economic isolation.

Westerners believe that Putin's victory in the war and the failure of Russia's Western containment policy will encourage China to invade Taiwan and engage more with Russia and other parties to weaken the dollar's hegemony over the global economy.

Therefore, Putin's battle in Ukraine is also a battle for China to humiliate the West, and an opportunity to create a new world order with rules different from those established by the West after the Cold War.

Although the sanctions weapon against Russia represented an opportunity for the West to display its control over the global economy, and the US dollar still manages this economy, the West is suffering from a deep crisis.

The specter of recession threatens most Western economies due to hyperinflation, turmoil in global energy markets, and the repercussions of the Corona pandemic.

Western domestic politics have also become highly polarized;

In the United States, for example, political extremism is on the rise on the right and left fronts, which portends major transformations in the American scene.

Concepts previously considered taboo, such as socialism, which many Americans still see as the spectrum of the Cold War, are also gaining in popularity.

And in Europe, extremist Yemeni parties are on the rise frighteningly.

On the contrary, there is no such polarization in Russia and China, and this seems understandable given the state's dominance in the two countries over all aspects of life, from politics to security, the economy and others.

The strength of the Chinese economy also helps it avoid the repercussions of any Western isolation that may be imposed on it, similar to the isolation that Russia faces.

At the level of military power, Beijing has been working for years to significantly modernize its military arsenal.

Despite the unity that the West has shown so far against Russia, the turmoil in European economies will contribute to the rise of voices demanding an end to this conflict at any cost.

The United States, for its part, is trying to adapt to the new situation, but it is facing the dilemma of convincing many countries of the world to join the battle of the West in preserving the rules of the current world order. President Biden's recent tour in South Asia was a good example of this.

He could not persuade India to abandon its close relationship with Russia.

In other parts of the world, many countries seem willing to isolate themselves from this conflict, either because some have forged close ties with Russia and China, or because others no longer trust partnership with the West.

Since the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war, there has been increased talk of the dangers of World War III.

The current global moment is very similar to the Cold War era;

On the one hand, Washington seeks to rally global democracies to counter the Sino-Russian axis.

While Europe, for example, treats the current conflict as truly reviving the Cold War era in terms of perceived Russian threats and military spending policies, the United States still sees China rather than Russia as its most dangerous geopolitical competitor in the world.

Nonetheless, the Biden administration is seeking to profoundly transform the European security environment by reviving and expanding NATO and causing Europeans to bear the greater security burden of the current conflict, unlike the Cold War era.

It is also working on forming blocs among its allies in other regions, such as the Middle East, to fill the void created by the United States' curtailment of its security commitments and to confront Russia and China's efforts to strengthen their presence in this region.

In the Cold War era, the West succeeded in neutralizing China from the Soviet Union, but today Beijing views the Western focus on Russia as an opportunity for it to enhance its military and economic capabilities.

The West has done well so far in showing unity, but the continuation of this unity is not guaranteed and will become questionable over time, and Putin is already betting on it to win the battle.

The Ukraine war is no longer just Russia's Western struggle over the country's identity, but has reinforced the great-power struggle to reshape the international order.

This conflict comes in light of unprecedented global challenges: in terms of the great powers’ involvement in a conflict that is not bound by rules that maintain global security and prevent the return of the nuclear arms race, or in terms of the risks of limiting cooperation between international powers to confront climate change and the spread of epidemics, as well as the risks of limiting cooperation between international powers to confront climate change and the spread of epidemics. Increased global economic turmoil due to intense global geopolitical competition.

It would be wise to admit that the global rules that have prevailed for decades can no longer manage the global situation;

Not only because it did not strike a balance between East and West, but also because the struggle over the feasibility of its survival or not will increase the risks of global geopolitical chaos and will make many other countries of this world - especially the poor ones - suffer more from the security and economic consequences of this competition and the repercussions of the decline in cooperation global level in the fight against climate change, energy policies and food insecurity.