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The internal and external policies – ranging from the challenge to the democratic process previously to latest actions and threats – undermine not only domestic and international jurisprudence. However, the issue goes deeper.

These actions jeopardize the core idea of what we mean by.

The ethical foundation of any advanced culture is to prevent the more powerful from attacking and exploiting the vulnerable. Without this, we risk being trapped in a conflict of all against all where might makes right wins.

This ideal is embedded of America’s founding documents. It’s also the core of the modern framework of international relations advocated by the America, which stresses collective action, popular sovereignty, individual liberties, and the supremacy of law.

Yet, it is a fragile ideal, easily violated by those who seek to abuse their authority. Maintaining it necessitates that the those in charge have a sense of duty to abstain from seeking short-term wins, and that society ensure they answer for their actions should they falter.

Absolute power is not right. It makes for turmoil, upheaval, and conflict.

Every time individuals, companies, or nations that are richer and more powerful attack and exploit those that are less so, the fabric of society unravels. If these actions are left unchecked, the structure collapses. If not stopped, the world can fall into disorder and conflict. It has happened before.

Our current reality is a global community marked by extreme inequality. Influence and wealth are held by fewer hands than in recent memory. This invites the elite to take advantage of the disadvantaged because they act with a sense of above the law.

The wealth of a small group of billionaires is staggering. The power of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors covers a vast portion of the world. Artificial intelligence is poised to centralize wealth and power to a greater degree. The military might of the leading countries is unprecedented in recorded history.

Supported by a compliant faction and a pliant judicial body, the highest office has been transformed into the supreme and answerable-to-none entity of state power in the modern era.

Combine these factors and you grasp the looming crisis.

A direct line links previous breaches of norms to current threats. Both were based on the hubris of invincibility.

One observes a similar pattern in other global contexts: in territorial invasions, in strategic threats, and in the worldwide exploitation by massive conglomerates.

But, unfettered might does not establish right. It fosters fragility, revolution, and armed conflict.

History shows that laws and norms to check the influential also safeguard them. If these guardrails are removed, their relentless pursuit for more power and wealth in time lead to their downfall – taking down their corporations, nations, or empires. And threaten world war.

Such lawlessness will plague international stability – and indeed a rules-based order – for years to come.