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The internal and external initiatives – ranging from the challenge to the democratic process five years ago to latest incursions and threats – weaken both national and global law. However, the issue goes deeper.

These actions jeopardize the fundamental meaning of what we mean by.

The ethical foundation of any advanced culture is to stop the more powerful from harming and taking advantage of the vulnerable. Without this, we could find ourselves trapped in a brutish war where survival of the strongest prevails.

This concept lies at the center of the nation's founding texts. It’s also the core of the global system established after WWII supported by the America, which stresses international cooperation, democratic governance, individual liberties, and the legal authority.

But, it is a delicate principle, frequently ignored by those who choose to misuse their authority. Upholding it necessitates that the powerful have a sense of duty to avoid seeking temporary advantages, and that the public demand responsibility should they falter.

Unchecked strength is not right. It makes for turmoil, chaos, and war.

Whenever entities that are advantaged attack and exploit those that are less so, the fabric of civilization frays. If such aggression are left unchecked, the structure collapses. Without intervention, the world can plunge into chaos and war. We have seen this pattern previously.

Today, we live in a global community grown vastly more unequal. Political and economic power are increasingly centralized than in modern history. This encourages the privileged to exploit the weaker because they perceive themselves as omnipotent.

The resources of a small group of tycoons is staggering. The power of major corporations in technology, energy, and aerospace spans much of the globe. Artificial intelligence is likely to further concentrate economic and political clout to a greater degree. The military might of the leading countries is without parallel in human history.

Supported by a compliant faction and a sympathetic supreme court, the highest office has been transformed into the most powerful and unaccountable instrument of state power in the modern era.

Combine these factors and you perceive the danger.

A direct line connects earlier lawless actions to present-day provocations. Each were premised on the overconfidence of omnipotence.

You see much the same in other global contexts: in territorial invasions, in strategic threats, and in the global depredation by massive conglomerates.

Yet, raw power does not establish right. It fosters uncertainty, upheaval, and bloodshed.

History shows that laws and norms to constrain the powerful also shield them. Without such constraints, their insatiable demands for greater influence and riches in time cause their collapse – and with them their corporations, nations, or empires. And threaten international catastrophe.

Such disregard for rules will haunt America and the global community – and the very idea of a rules-based order – for years to come.