🔗 Share this article

The internal and external policies – ranging from the attempted coup previously to recent moves and threats – weaken both domestic and international legal frameworks. The implications are broader.

They endanger the very concept of civilization itself.

A moral purpose of any advanced culture is to forestall the dominant from preying upon and using the vulnerable. Failing that, we risk being trapped in a conflict of all against all where only the fittest wins.

This concept is embedded of the Declaration and Constitution. It’s also the core of the global system established after WWII supported by the US, built on multilateralism, democracy, human rights, and the supremacy of law.

But, it is a fragile principle, easily violated by those who choose to misuse their authority. Maintaining it demands that the influential have enough integrity to avoid seeking immediate gains, and that society hold them accountable when they fail.

Absolute power does not equal right. It results in turmoil, disruption, and conflict.

Every time individuals, companies, or nations that are advantaged attack and exploit those that are weaker, the structure of our shared norms weakens. If such aggression are left unchecked, the fabric unravels. If not stopped, the world can fall into chaos and war. History provides ample precedent.

We now inhabit a international landscape with deepening divides. Authority and resources are increasingly centralized than in modern history. This encourages the elite to leverage their position against the weaker because they perceive themselves as omnipotent.

The wealth of a small group of tycoons is almost beyond comprehension. The power of global industrial giants extends over numerous countries. Artificial intelligence is poised to consolidate economic and political clout further. The military might of the major powers is unmatched in recorded history.

Supported by a compliant faction and a pliant supreme court, the highest office has been made into the most powerful and unaccountable entity of the state in history.

Combine these factors and you see the threat.

An unbroken thread ties past transgressions to present-day menaces. These were founded upon the overconfidence of invincibility.

You see parallel dynamics in other global contexts: in wars of aggression, in strategic threats, and in the global depredation by powerful corporate entities.

But, raw power does not establish right. It makes for instability, upended order, and bloodshed.

Historical evidence demonstrates that frameworks designed to limit the influential also protect them. Without such constraints, their relentless pursuit for increased control and resources eventually bring them down – along with their corporations, nations, or empires. And pave the way for global conflict.

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