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The national and international initiatives – ranging from the attempted coup in the past to current actions and warnings – undermine not only domestic and international legal frameworks. The implications are broader.

These actions endanger the core idea of a civilized world.

The guiding principle of any advanced culture is to prevent the dominant from harming and taking advantage of the less powerful. Failing that, we would be locked in a conflict of all against all where survival of the strongest wins.

This ideal is embedded of America’s founding documents. It’s also the core of the modern framework of international relations advocated by the United States, emphasizing international cooperation, popular sovereignty, individual liberties, and the rule of law.

But, it is a vulnerable principle, frequently ignored by those who choose to misuse their authority. Upholding it demands that the influential have the moral fortitude to refrain from seeking immediate gains, and that the public hold them accountable if they don't.

Unfettered might does not make right. It makes for turmoil, upheaval, and hostilities.

Each instance people or corporations or countries that are richer and more powerful prey upon those that are less so, the fabric of civilization unravels. Should such behavior are left unchecked, the fabric unravels. Without intervention, the world can plunge into disorder and conflict. We have seen this pattern previously.

Our current reality is a international landscape marked by extreme inequality. Authority and resources are increasingly centralized than in recent memory. This invites the powerful to take advantage of the weaker because they perceive themselves as above the law.

The resources of a handful of tycoons is staggering. The power of major corporations in technology, energy, and aerospace spans much of the globe. Advanced technology is poised to centralize resources and influence to a greater degree. The offensive capability of the leading countries is without parallel in recorded history.

Supported by complicit legislators and a pliant supreme court, the executive office has been turned into the most dominant and unchecked entity of state power in recent memory.

Combine these factors and you see the danger.

A clear connection connects past lawless actions to ongoing threats. These were based on the overconfidence of absolute power.

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

Yet, unfettered might does not make right. It makes for instability, revolution, and armed conflict.

The lessons of the past reveal that rules and conventions to check the powerful also protect them. Without such constraints, their relentless pursuit for increased control and resources eventually cause their collapse – taking down their corporations, nations, or empires. And pave the way for international catastrophe.

This kind of disregard for rules will plague international stability – and indeed a rules-based order – for the foreseeable future.