[gmuslera]

There is a layer over this that should be noticed. Nowhere is safe, because international order is a joke. You can conduct invasions for land, to exterminate population, to whatever Trump is doing, every instrument of international law was just useless, or even cooperative with the stronger offender. Which will be the ones taking advantage of this situation? China, Brazil?

Everything is forgotten or accepted with the right media campaign, there are no war crimes, no punishment, as much you can get a commercial embargo or taxes if you are going against the interest of the biggest economic players.

[gmueckl]

The same line of reasoning leads to constitutions and laws being jokes, too.

The simple fact is that rules matter if and only if they are enforced effectively by a community. And power is the ability to direct and control that enforcement.

The international order has declined in the past one or two decades because the UN security council was hamstrung by the enormously powerful veto rights held by Russia, China and the U.S. This has slowly emboldened those countries to de-value the UN and pursue their own interests.

[XorNot]

There has never been any ability for the UN to work the way people seem to think it should work.

Because who exactly, outside of those major powers, is going to enforce anything?

[gmuslera]

It is not that laws are being jokes or not because are not in place, but ends being that way when they are in place and they are blatantly ignored, specially for some power groups or communities. Then they can break those laws with impunity, and then others follow example with varied success, but still, those laws are already a joke.

[01100011]

We're finding out quickly that international law is a farce and might makes right, more or less.

You can defend yourself with letters of strong condemnation only as long as someone stronger doesn't want what you have.

[surgical_fire]

Precisely.

I think it's sort of laughable when people try to invoke international law about the strait being closed when the country closing it was being bombed in the first place. Once your civilian infrastructure is being attacked all gloves are off.

What people fail to understand is that international order being respected favors the stronger and more developed countries first. Those are the countries that depend more on complex supply chains, on more expensive infrastructure, etc.

That the US of all countries would be the one dismantling an order that favored it first and foremost is sort of fascinating to watch, especially when it is replacing it with nothing. Definitely not something I would have guessed even a few years ago.