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The national and international strategies – including the attempted coup previously to recent moves and threats – weaken both domestic and international jurisprudence. But that’s not all.

They threaten the core idea of what we mean by.

A moral purpose of civilized society is to stop the dominant from attacking and exploiting the weaker. Otherwise, we risk being locked in a brutish war where might makes right could survive.

This concept lies at the center of America’s founding documents. This is also the core of the modern framework of international relations advocated by the America, built on multilateralism, democracy, fundamental freedoms, and the legal authority.

However, it is a delicate construct, easily violated by those who would exploit their influence. Upholding it demands that the influential have a sense of duty to abstain from seeking immediate gains, and that the public hold them accountable if they don't.

Unfettered might does not make right. It leads to uncertainty, chaos, and conflict.

Whenever people or corporations or countries that are wealthier and stronger target and use those that are not, the framework of our shared norms weakens. If these actions are allowed to continue, the system fails. If not stopped, the world can fall into disorder and conflict. It has happened before.

Today, we live in a global community marked by extreme inequality. Influence and wealth are more concentrated than in recent memory. This creates conditions for the powerful to take advantage of the less fortunate because they feel above the law.

The fortunes of a handful of tycoons is difficult to fathom. The power of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors spans a vast portion of the world. AI is poised to consolidate wealth and power to a greater degree. The destructive power of the leading countries is without parallel in recorded history.

Empowered by political allies and a pliant high court, the presidency has been made into the most powerful and unaccountable entity of the state in the modern era.

Consider this confluence and you see the threat.

A clear connection connects past lawless actions to current provocations. Both were premised on the arrogance of omnipotence.

You see much the same in other global contexts: in territorial invasions, in strategic threats, and in the worldwide exploitation by industrial titans.

However, unfettered might does not create right. It makes for fragility, revolution, and war.

Historical evidence demonstrates that laws and norms to limit the influential also safeguard them. Absent these limits, their relentless pursuit for greater influence and riches in time bring them down – and with them their corporations, nations, or empires. And threaten global conflict.

This blatant contempt for legal order will plague America and the global community – and the very idea of a rules-based order – for years to come.