Like during the Cold War, the global schism has a military component that is gradually intensifying. The emerging East-West military standoff is building on the energy of the polarization exacerbated by the Russo-Ukrainian war for NATO expansion.

A series of international organizations—a network of networks—created by Russia and China form the pillars upon which an alternative to the Western-dominated world order are being built. There is already an institutional split between the West and the rest evidencing the pre-schism bifurcation among great powers: the G7 and G20.

Nearly a decade ago I began warning that NATO expansion and the West’s failure to understand that Russian national security interests not a Russian desire to ‘recreate the USSR’ or ‘former Russian empire’ would lead to a world split apart between the West and ‘the rest’ (Sino-Russian ‘strategic partnership and those states oriented towards it).

The battle between Russia and the West for Moldova has been ongoing since the Soviet collapse, despite the country’s constitutional ban on joining alliances, presumably applying only to military ones.

Russia is one or two more massive bombing attacks on Ukraine’s energy and transport infrastructure from permanently disabling Ukraine’s electricity, water, and railroad systems.

Eight years ago in Odessa, the neofascist element in Ukrainian politics, then led by Dmitro Yarosh’s Right Sector, burned to death, shot, and otherwise killed at least some 45 anti-Maidan regime picketers inside the Trade Union Building.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a goal of his war in Ukraine the ‘denazification’ of the country.