We have not taught the lessons of World War II to subsequent generations. Most Americans cannot define fascism; thus they cannot identify fascism in action and are not prepared to defend against it. Today, we are enduring the rise of fascism once again from the unfinished business of World War II.

The USSR absorbed eastern European nations after the defeat of National Socialism. The largest of its satellites, Ukraine, gained its freedom through the Maidan protests and deposed Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. Russia retaliated by invading Crimea and attempting a takeover of Donetsk and Luhansk, regions on Ukraine’s border with Russia. In 2022 Russia executed a Blitzkrieg — reminiscent of Hitler’s invasion of Poland — against Ukraine, which, thankfully, failed to take Kyiv.

What is happening today in Ukraine and Israel primarily, but also in Russia’s southern sphere of influence in the Balkan states, resembles what happened after the Weimar Republic of Germany failed and Hitler became the chancellor of the Third Reich. Russia now, like Germany then, is a power with aspirations to control the Eurasian continent from Vladivostok to Dublin. Vladimir Putin has called the fall of the USSR the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century. He believes that the United States humiliated Russia by weakening its ability to recover from sudden decline marked by a rise in mortality and hardship in the 1990s.

Two days before Hamas executed its Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israeli civilians next to Gaza’s border, Putin gave a speech at Russia’s annual Valdai Discussion Club — a major propaganda event — that reiterated his vision of “Eurasianism.” Russia’s proto-fascist plan to recruit unaligned nations to replace American “hegemony” with a “new world order” of “multipolarity.”

“Multipolarity” is doublespeak for the replacement of the dollar as the world’s currency, the control over trade routes in the South China Sea, the military development of the Arctic, the establishment of trade and geopolitical control over the Pacific Island region, Africa and Latin America, and the eradication of the United States’ influence in world affairs.

Unfortunately, the word is now being adopted by American journalists, such as Noah Smith and David Leonhardt, without their realizing that it is an enticement to the defeat of the West in a war against democracy.

We are, I believe, in a hybrid war with Russia. Like the Cold War, it is marked by hot wars in vulnerable regions, blitzkriegs against allies of the West, such as Ukraine and Israel, and by the use of a weaponized internet to spread chaos and division within the United States and its allies. In this war, social media is a force multiplier. The ability to undermine expertise, manipulate images, spread disinformation and polarize a population advances the chaos that is essential to deposing the Pax Americana and replacing it with “multipolarity.”

Ignorance of Putin’s vision, Russia’s expansionist narrative, the impact of neo-fascism, the resort to “rapid action through time” in the form of blitzkrieg against Ukraine and Israel, the destabilization of politics in the United States, and the pragmatic alliance with China indicate we are involved in a new kind of global war. Unless we understand this, we cannot effectively respond to Putin’s plan.

Israel was attacked on the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, on Putin’s 71st birthday, and the Jewish New Year (Simchat Torah marks the end of the yearly reading of the Torah/Books of Moses). This is not a coincidence. Hamas is creating a new calendar of dates that resonate with its adherents. Al-Qaida compared the attack on Israel with the Battle of Khaybar in 628 when Mohammad’s army eradicated rebel Jewish tribes in Medina.

Henry Kissinger warned in 2018 that these “individual crises” are not the result of coincidence. “The traditional patterns of great power rivalry are returning,” he stated.

Russia is a neo-fascist, expansionist state with imperial dreams. We have been here before.

Honolulu resident Jean E. Rosenfeld, Ph.D., is a historian and scholar of religious terrorism.