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The national and international policies – from the attempted coup five years ago to latest actions and threats – weaken both national and global law. The implications are broader.

They endanger the fundamental meaning of civilization itself.

The guiding principle of a functioning society is to stop the dominant from attacking and exploiting the less powerful. Otherwise, we would be permanently immersed in a conflict of all against all where only the fittest could survive.

This principle is embedded of America’s founding documents. It is equally the core of the postwar international order advocated by the US, emphasizing collective action, democratic governance, individual liberties, and the supremacy of law.

However, it is a vulnerable principle, often broken by those who seek to abuse their authority. Upholding it requires that the influential have a sense of duty to abstain from seeking short-term wins, and that society demand responsibility should they falter.

Absolute power does not equal right. It leads to uncertainty, upheaval, and conflict.

Each instance people or corporations or countries that are richer and more powerful prey upon those that are not, the structure of civilization weakens. If these actions are allowed to continue, the fabric unravels. Allowing it to persist, the world can plunge into chaos and war. History provides ample precedent.

Today, we live in a society and world marked by extreme inequality. Political and economic power are more concentrated than in recent memory. This creates conditions for the elite to exploit the less fortunate because they act with a sense of untouchable.

The wealth of a small group of ultra-wealthy individuals is almost beyond comprehension. The reach of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors covers a vast portion of the world. AI is poised to centralize economic and political clout to a greater degree. The military might of the leading countries is without parallel in the annals of time.

Enabled by complicit legislators and an accommodating judicial body, the presidency has been made into the most dominant and unchecked agent of state power in the modern era.

Put it all together and you grasp the looming crisis.

A clear connection ties previous transgressions to ongoing menaces. Both were premised on the hubris of omnipotence.

One observes much the same in the actions of other powers: in military conflicts, in coercive diplomacy, and in the global depredation by industrial titans.

But, raw power does not establish right. It fosters instability, upheaval, and bloodshed.

The lessons of the past reveal that frameworks designed to constrain the powerful also shield them. Without such constraints, their relentless pursuit for more power and wealth eventually bring them down – taking down their enterprises, countries, or domains. And risk global conflict.

This kind of disregard for rules will haunt America and the global community – and the very idea of civilized conduct – for years to come.