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His domestic and foreign policies – ranging from the attempted coup five years ago to recent moves and warnings – weaken both domestic and international legal frameworks. But that’s not all.

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

The moral purpose of any advanced culture is to forestall the more powerful from attacking and exploiting the vulnerable. Otherwise, we would be permanently immersed in a brutish war where might makes right could survive.

This principle is embedded of America’s founding documents. It’s also the core of the modern framework of international relations championed by the America, which stresses multilateralism, popular sovereignty, human rights, and the legal authority.

Yet, it is a vulnerable principle, frequently ignored by those who would exploit their influence. Maintaining it demands that the powerful have the moral fortitude to avoid seeking immediate gains, and that the public ensure they answer for their actions if they don't.

Unfettered might does not equal right. It leads to turmoil, chaos, and conflict.

Whenever entities that are wealthier and stronger prey upon those that are not, the framework of civilization weakens. If such aggression are left unchecked, the fabric unravels. Without intervention, the world can descend into disorder and conflict. We have seen this pattern previously.

We now inhabit a global community grown vastly more unequal. Political and economic power are increasingly centralized than ever before. This creates conditions for the privileged to take advantage of the disadvantaged because they perceive themselves as omnipotent.

The resources of certain tycoons is staggering. The influence of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors spans much of the globe. Artificial intelligence is poised to consolidate wealth and power to a greater degree. The offensive capability of the leading countries is unmatched in the annals of time.

Enabled by a compliant faction and a sympathetic supreme court, the presidency has been turned into the supreme and answerable-to-none agent of the state in recent memory.

Combine these factors and you see the threat.

A clear connection links past breaches of norms to ongoing provocations. These were premised on the arrogance of omnipotence.

There is a similar pattern in international affairs: in territorial invasions, in expansive ambitions, and in the rampant monopolization by industrial titans.

However, raw power does not create right. It fosters uncertainty, revolution, and armed conflict.

Historical evidence demonstrates that laws and norms to constrain the influential also safeguard them. Absent these limits, their relentless pursuit for greater influence and riches in time bring them down – taking down their enterprises, countries, or domains. And threaten world war.

This kind of contempt for legal order will cast a long shadow over international stability – and the very idea of civilized conduct – for years to come.