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His national and international policies – from the challenge to the democratic process five years ago to latest moves and warnings – weaken not only national and global law. The implications are broader.

They threaten the very concept of a civilized world.

The ethical foundation of a functioning society is to prevent the more powerful from attacking and exploiting the weaker. Otherwise, we could find ourselves locked in a state of nature where only the fittest could survive.

This concept is central of America’s founding documents. This is also the heart of the global system established after WWII advocated by the America, built on collective action, democracy, human rights, and the supremacy of law.

However, it is a fragile principle, often broken by those who seek to abuse their authority. Preserving it necessitates that the influential have a sense of duty to refrain from seeking short-term wins, and that the rest of us hold them accountable when they fail.

Unchecked strength is not right. It leads to turmoil, chaos, and hostilities.

Every time individuals, companies, or nations that are richer and more powerful attack and exploit those that are weaker, the structure of our shared norms unravels. If these actions are left unchecked, the system fails. Without intervention, the world can descend into instability and violence. We have seen this pattern previously.

We now inhabit a society and world grown vastly more unequal. Authority and resources are held by fewer hands than ever before. This encourages the privileged to leverage their position against the less fortunate because they perceive themselves as untouchable.

The fortunes of certain tycoons is staggering. The reach of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors extends over numerous countries. Advanced technology is poised to further concentrate economic and political clout to a greater degree. The offensive capability of the leading countries is without parallel in recorded history.

Enabled by political allies and a pliant supreme court, the executive office has been transformed into the most powerful and unaccountable agent of the state in history.

Consider this confluence and you see the threat.

A direct line ties previous lawless actions to current provocations. Both were founded upon the arrogance of omnipotence.

You see parallel dynamics in international affairs: in military conflicts, in strategic threats, and in the rampant monopolization by massive conglomerates.

But, unfettered might does not make right. It makes for fragility, upended order, and war.

The lessons of the past reveal that laws and norms to check the influential also safeguard them. Without such constraints, their endless appetite for increased control and resources ultimately bring them down – along with their corporations, nations, or empires. And pave the way for global conflict.

Such contempt for legal order will cast a long shadow over international stability – and indeed civilized conduct – for the foreseeable future.