🔗 Share this article

His internal and external initiatives – including the attempted coup in the past to current incursions and statements – erode both national and global law. But that’s not all.

These actions threaten the very concept of what we mean by.

The moral purpose of any advanced culture is to prevent the stronger from attacking and exploiting the less powerful. Failing that, we risk being locked in a conflict of all against all where might makes right prevails.

This concept is embedded of the nation's founding texts. It’s also the foundation of the postwar international order advocated by the America, which stresses international cooperation, democracy, human rights, and the legal authority.

But, it is a fragile ideal, often broken by those who would exploit their influence. Upholding it demands that the influential have enough integrity to avoid seeking short-term wins, and that the rest of us ensure they answer for their actions when they fail.

Absolute power is not right. It makes for instability, chaos, and war.

Each instance individuals, companies, or nations that are advantaged attack and exploit those that are weaker, the fabric of society weakens. Should such behavior are not contained, the system fails. Without intervention, the world can fall into instability and violence. It has happened before.

Today, we live in a global community with deepening divides. Political and economic power are more concentrated than in modern history. This invites the privileged to exploit the weaker because they act with a sense of untouchable.

The resources of a small group of billionaires is difficult to fathom. The power of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors spans much of the globe. Advanced technology is likely to centralize economic and political clout to a greater degree. The military might of the world's largest nations is without parallel in recorded history.

Enabled by a compliant faction and a sympathetic high court, the highest office has been turned into the most powerful and unaccountable agent of state power in the modern era.

Put it all together and you see the threat.

A clear connection links earlier lawless actions to current threats. These were founded upon the overconfidence of absolute power.

One observes a similar pattern in other global contexts: in military conflicts, in coercive diplomacy, and in the rampant monopolization by industrial titans.

However, raw power does not create right. It produces fragility, upheaval, and war.

History shows that laws and norms to limit the powerful also protect them. If these guardrails are removed, their insatiable demands for more power and wealth ultimately cause their collapse – taking down their enterprises, countries, or domains. And risk world war.

This kind of lawlessness will haunt the nation and the world – and indeed a rules-based order – for years to come.