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His domestic and foreign initiatives – from the challenge to the democratic process five years ago to latest actions and threats – weaken both domestic and international legal frameworks. The implications are broader.

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

A ethical foundation of any advanced culture is to forestall the more powerful from preying upon and using the weaker. Failing that, we risk being locked in a state of nature where only the fittest prevails.

This concept is embedded of the nation's founding texts. It is equally the foundation of the postwar international order supported by the US, emphasizing multilateralism, democracy, fundamental freedoms, and the supremacy of law.

However, it is a vulnerable principle, easily violated by those who would exploit their authority. Preserving it necessitates that the powerful have enough integrity to refrain from seeking temporary advantages, and that the public demand responsibility when they fail.

Unfettered might does not make right. It makes for turmoil, disruption, and conflict.

Each instance entities that are advantaged prey upon those that are weaker, the fabric of our shared norms frays. If such aggression are not contained, the system fails. If not stopped, the world can plunge into instability and violence. We have seen this pattern previously.

We now inhabit a society and world grown vastly more unequal. Political and economic power are increasingly centralized than in recent memory. This invites the powerful to leverage their position against the weaker because they perceive themselves as untouchable.

The resources of a handful of tycoons is almost beyond comprehension. The power of global industrial giants extends over a vast portion of the world. AI is poised to centralize wealth and power further. The destructive power of the major powers is unmatched in recorded history.

Enabled by complicit legislators and a sympathetic supreme court, the presidency has been turned into the most dominant and unchecked instrument of state power in the modern era.

Consider this confluence and you see the danger.

A direct line connects previous breaches of norms to ongoing provocations. Each were based on the hubris of absolute power.

One observes parallel dynamics in international affairs: in military conflicts, in coercive diplomacy, and in the rampant monopolization by industrial titans.

However, strength without restraint does not create right. It produces instability, upheaval, and bloodshed.

The lessons of the past reveal that rules and conventions to limit the influential also safeguard them. Absent these limits, their insatiable demands for greater influence and riches eventually cause their collapse – and with them their corporations, nations, or empires. And risk global conflict.

This blatant lawlessness will haunt international stability – and indeed a rules-based order – for years to come.