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The national and international policies – ranging from the attempted coup five years ago to current actions and warnings – erode both domestic and international legal frameworks. The implications are broader.

They threaten the fundamental meaning of what we mean by.

A ethical foundation of a functioning society is to stop the more powerful from attacking and exploiting the weaker. Otherwise, we would be locked in a state of nature where survival of the strongest wins.

This principle lies at the center of the Declaration and Constitution. It’s also the core of the postwar international order supported by the America, which stresses multilateralism, popular sovereignty, human rights, and the legal authority.

However, it is a fragile construct, often broken by those who seek to abuse their influence. Upholding it requires that the those in charge have enough integrity to refrain from seeking temporary advantages, and that society ensure they answer for their actions should they falter.

Unfettered might does not equal right. It leads to instability, disruption, and war.

Each instance entities that are richer and more powerful target and use those that are less so, the structure of our shared norms weakens. If such aggression are not contained, the system fails. Without intervention, the world can descend into chaos and war. It has happened before.

We now inhabit a society and world marked by extreme inequality. Influence and wealth are more concentrated than ever before. This encourages the powerful to exploit the weaker because they feel above the law.

The wealth of certain billionaires is difficult to fathom. The power of major corporations in technology, energy, and aerospace extends over much of the globe. Artificial intelligence is likely to centralize economic and political clout to a greater degree. The destructive power of the leading countries is unprecedented in recorded history.

Enabled by complicit legislators and a pliant judicial body, the presidency has been made into the most powerful and unaccountable instrument of state power in recent memory.

Put it all together and you perceive the danger.

An unbroken thread ties previous lawless actions to ongoing threats. Each were premised on the overconfidence of invincibility.

You see a similar pattern in international affairs: in territorial invasions, in expansive ambitions, and in the global depredation by massive conglomerates.

But, strength without restraint does not create right. It makes for fragility, revolution, and armed conflict.

Historical evidence demonstrates that laws and norms to limit the influential also shield them. Without such constraints, their relentless pursuit for more power and wealth in time lead to their downfall – along with their enterprises, countries, or domains. And pave the way for world war.

This kind of disregard for rules will cast a long shadow over the nation and the world – and indeed civilization – for years to come.