(Dobbs) “Might makes right” Was Supposed to be Buried in History’s Trash BinSuperpower leaders don’t heed history. They don’t look back. They look only forward, and they fail.
********************************************************************************************************** Three days ago, most commentators, including me, got hung up on the part of Donald Trump’s speech to the United Nations where he coldheartedly asked, “Do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?” Not that it didn’t deserve headline status. Contrary to the very spirit of peace in which the U.N. was created after two world wars, the president of the United States was threatening to wipe up to 93 million Iranians, most of whom never hurt us, off the face of the earth. It flew right in the face of the U.N. charter and international law. And human decency. But he said something else that deserves equal attention, because it was an appalling glimpse into his macabre mind. Speaking of what he brags about as “an amazing military operation” when the U.S. invaded the sovereign nation of Venezuela and kidnapped its president and seized its most precious asset, oil, he told the General Assembly, “Our actions in Venezuela are proof that the United States will no longer permit threats to America to gain a foothold anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. And if necessary, we will use our unmatched military might to secure the vital national interests of the United States.” As if he had the right to do what he did. His appalling Machiavellian declaration was, “To the victor belong the spoils.” Isn’t that how the world used to be? Isn’t it a throwback to the centuries when colonial powers took what they wanted from weaker nations and considered it their divine right? Doesn’t it confirm what Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney told the economic forum in Switzerland last January, that “the old global order has been rendered fiction” and there is a new “harsh reality, where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints?” “No limits, no constraints.” That defines Donald Trump. But it also defines his superpower peers, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. If these leaders have their way, the world will turn back in that direction. Trump has certainly signed on. He attacks Venezuela while it’s down at the heels because he claims he perceives a threat, even though none was obvious to anybody else. He threatens to invade defenseless Greenland if they don’t give us what we want. And Panama. Maybe Mexico. Maybe even Canada. And of course, Iran. “Might makes right” was supposed to be buried in history’s trash bin when the Second World War came to its ferocious end. But President Trump has given it new life. Likewise with Putin. To both these guys, and to Xi as he harasses neighboring nations in the South China Sea and still threatens to take Taiwan by force, the U.N. and international law are so yesterday. What they don’t concede is that there are limits to the power of a superpower. The U.N.’s retiring secretary general António Guterres made that point in his speech: “Building a networked future begins with the recognition, especially by superpowers, that their power isn’t so super, that their power has limits. And the events of recent years have made that unmistakably clear. Military power alone cannot secure peace. Economic power alone cannot command stability, and technological power alone cannot guarantee security.” Realistically, Trump in Iran and Putin in Ukraine should understand that better than anybody. Their wars, which they both thought would be cakewalks, have failed, their economies— and China’s— are fragile, and technological power is as accessible to smaller powers as it is to them. If Trump hasn’t learned that on his own, he should infer it from the speech that came the day after he spoke, when Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian told the same General Assembly, “It must be understood by Mr. Trump and those who seek to bully us that we are ready for dialogue and diplomacy and negotiations without accepting the language of force.” As Pezeshkian said in his speech, “Yes they did hit us, but we did not bend the knee.” That isn’t far from the truth. Iran didn’t, Canada hasn’t. Nor has Ukraine. In January in Switzerland, the line from Prime Minister Carney that got the headlines was, “The middle powers must act together because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.” Canada is one of those “middle powers.” So is Iran. Its president even echoed Carney: “Iran must be powerful so as to avoid being threatened, to avoid its future being threatened. A world without power is dangerous, but a world that only understands the language of war and bullying will not be safe.” This is not to suggest that the Iranians are good guys. They’re not. But although badly battered, in some ways they now hold the upper hand against a superpower. The Washington Post’s David Ignatius on Wednesday quoted a former head of the U.K.’s equivalent of the CIA, called MI6, who told the BBC a year-and-a-half ago, “We are in a new era where, by and large, international relations aren’t going to be determined by rules and multilateral institutions. They’re going to be determined by strong men and deals.” But Ignatius points out, “That’s not quite the way it has turned out. The big countries’ attempts to impose their will have generally gone badly. The most obvious examples are the wars in Ukraine and Iran. The use of drones tipped the strategic balance in both of those conflicts. We learned that cheap drones, the weapons of the weak, can confound the mighty arsenals of the superpowers.” That’s another way of saying, Russia hasn’t tamed Ukraine, the U.S. hasn’t tamed Iran. The superpowers’ power “isn’t so super.” So Donald Trump might declare, “To the victor belong the spoils,” but in the big wars that engulf the world right now, those spoils aren’t doing us any good. Our gas prices are higher, our diesel prices are higher, our food prices are higher, and as of yesterday, the price of a mortgage has shot up to 7%, which makes it harder to cut a deal whether you’re buying a home or selling one. Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin both have failed to understand two things. First, partly because of new technology, underdog nations have more of an equal shot. And second, even a superpower can’t control the determination of people under attack to fight back when the very survival of their nation is at stake. Putin could see that if he looked back to his own nation’s unexpected survival against the Germans in World War II. Trump could see it if he looked back to the unlikely success of the American revolution. But these leaders don’t heed history. They don’t look back. They look only forward, and they fail. © 2026 Greg Dobbs |