"What is wrong with resurrecting the prerogative of major powers to claim a sphere of influence in which they dictate and others must follow? That idea informs the Donroe Doctrine behind the US invasion of Venezuela to seize Nicolas Maduro. Donald Trump seems to believe that, as the world's strongest military power, the United States should be allowed to invade other countries at will. Trump's homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller, says the real world is governed by strength, by power,"
"But do we really want to return to the law of the jungle in which the guy with the biggest stick calls the shots? There is a beguiling simplicity to this abandonment of the norms long designed to govern the behavior of states big and small. China has touted it as the reality that its Asian neighbors must live with. Russia, a third-tier power by comparison but still a nuclear-armed regional heavyweight, has periodically treated the boundaries of post-Soviet states as mere suggestions."
Resurrecting great-power spheres of influence would allow dominant states to dictate smaller states' fates and erode norms governing state behavior. The United States under leaders favoring unconstrained military power has resisted international legal instruments such as the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Law of the Sea Treaty, and membership in the International Criminal Court. China and Russia have asserted regional prerogatives, sometimes treating neighboring borders as malleable. Returning to power-based diplomacy risks normalizing invasions, weakening collective standards, and encouraging a global order where military strength, rather than law or multilateral agreement, determines outcomes.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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