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His national and international strategies – including the challenge to the democratic process in the past to latest moves and threats – undermine both domestic and international law. But that’s not all.

They endanger the fundamental meaning of a civilized world.

The guiding principle of any advanced culture is to stop the dominant from harming and taking advantage of the vulnerable. Without this, we would be trapped in a state of nature where only the fittest wins.

This concept is central of the nation's founding texts. It’s also the foundation of the global system established after WWII supported by the America, built on multilateralism, democracy, human rights, and the supremacy of law.

However, it is a vulnerable construct, easily violated by those who seek to abuse their influence. Preserving it demands that the those in charge have a sense of duty to refrain from seeking temporary advantages, and that the public ensure they answer for their actions if they don't.

Unchecked strength does not make right. It makes for uncertainty, chaos, and conflict.

Every time people or corporations or countries that are advantaged target and use those that are not, the framework of society unravels. If such aggression are allowed to continue, the system fails. If not stopped, the world can plunge into disorder and conflict. It has happened before.

We now inhabit a international landscape grown vastly more unequal. Authority and resources are more concentrated than in modern history. This invites the elite to leverage their position against the weaker because they perceive themselves as untouchable.

The fortunes of a small group of tycoons is difficult to fathom. The reach of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors extends over numerous countries. AI is likely to further concentrate economic and political clout even more. The offensive capability of the world's largest nations is without parallel in the annals of time.

Enabled by complicit legislators and a pliant supreme court, the executive office has been turned into the most dominant and unchecked entity of the state in recent memory.

Consider this confluence and you grasp the threat.

An unbroken thread ties previous lawless actions to current threats. Both were premised on the hubris of absolute power.

There is much the same in international affairs: in territorial invasions, in strategic threats, and in the worldwide exploitation by powerful corporate entities.

But, strength without restraint does not create right. It makes for instability, upended order, and armed conflict.

The lessons of the past reveal that frameworks designed to limit the powerful also shield 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 blatant contempt for legal order will haunt international stability – and indeed civilization – for a long time.