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His national and international strategies – ranging from the attempted coup five years ago to latest moves and statements – erode both national and global law. But that’s not all.

These actions jeopardize the fundamental meaning of civilization itself.

A ethical foundation of any advanced culture is to prevent the more powerful from preying upon and using the weaker. Otherwise, we could find ourselves locked in a conflict of all against all where only the fittest wins.

This ideal lies at the center of the nation's founding texts. It is equally the heart of the modern framework of international relations championed by the United States, which stresses international cooperation, popular sovereignty, human rights, and the supremacy of law.

Yet, it is a vulnerable principle, frequently ignored by those who would exploit their authority. Maintaining it requires that the influential have the moral fortitude to abstain from seeking short-term wins, and that the rest of us ensure they answer for their actions should they falter.

Unfettered might is not right. It results in instability, chaos, and war.

Every time people or corporations or countries that are richer and more powerful prey upon those that are not, the framework of society weakens. Should such behavior are not contained, the fabric unravels. Allowing it to persist, the world can plunge 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 increasingly centralized than in recent memory. This creates conditions for the powerful to exploit the less fortunate because they act with a sense of omnipotent.

The resources of a handful of ultra-wealthy individuals is difficult to fathom. The power of global industrial giants covers a vast portion of the world. Advanced technology is likely to further concentrate economic and political clout even more. The destructive power of the world's largest nations is unprecedented in the annals of time.

Supported by complicit legislators and an accommodating supreme court, the presidency has been transformed into the most powerful and unaccountable agent of state power in recent memory.

Consider this confluence and you see the looming crisis.

A direct line ties earlier breaches of norms to present-day provocations. Both were based on the overconfidence of absolute power.

One observes much the same in international affairs: in military conflicts, in coercive diplomacy, and in the rampant monopolization by industrial titans.

However, unfettered might does not make right. It produces uncertainty, upheaval, and war.

The lessons of the past reveal that frameworks designed to check the powerful also shield them. Without such constraints, their insatiable demands for more power and wealth in time lead to their downfall – and with them their enterprises, countries, or domains. And pave the way for world war.

This kind of lawlessness will haunt international stability – and the very idea of civilized conduct – for years to come.