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The national and international strategies – including the challenge to the democratic process five years ago to recent actions and warnings – weaken both domestic and international law. But that’s not all.

They endanger the fundamental meaning of what we mean by.

A guiding principle of a functioning society is to forestall the more powerful from harming and taking advantage of the weaker. Without this, we could find ourselves permanently immersed in a conflict of all against all where survival of the strongest wins.

This principle is central of the Declaration and Constitution. This is also the core of the global system established after WWII advocated by the US, emphasizing collective action, democracy, human rights, and the supremacy of law.

But, it is a delicate construct, frequently ignored by those who would exploit their influence. Maintaining it requires that the powerful have the moral fortitude to abstain from seeking temporary advantages, and that the rest of us demand responsibility if they don't.

Unfettered might does not equal right. It makes for turmoil, upheaval, and war.

Every time individuals, companies, or nations that are wealthier and stronger prey upon those that are weaker, the framework of civilization weakens. If such aggression are allowed to continue, the structure collapses. Allowing it to persist, the world can plunge into chaos and war. It has happened before.

We now inhabit a global community grown vastly more unequal. Political and economic power are held by fewer hands than in recent memory. This invites the privileged to exploit the less fortunate because they feel untouchable.

The fortunes of certain billionaires is staggering. The power of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors covers much of the globe. AI is poised to centralize wealth and power even more. The military might of the major powers is unprecedented in human history.

Empowered by complicit legislators and an accommodating judicial body, the executive office has been turned into the most powerful and unaccountable agent of state power in the modern era.

Consider this confluence and you see the threat.

A clear connection links past lawless actions to current provocations. Each were premised on the overconfidence of invincibility.

You see much the same in other global contexts: in military conflicts, in coercive diplomacy, and in the rampant monopolization by powerful corporate entities.

Yet, strength without restraint does not create right. It fosters instability, revolution, and armed conflict.

The lessons of the past reveal that frameworks designed to constrain the influential also protect them. If these guardrails are removed, their endless appetite for increased control and resources in time cause their collapse – along with their corporations, nations, or empires. And risk world war.

This kind of lawlessness will cast a long shadow over international stability – and the very idea of a rules-based order – for a long time.