When Legal Order Depends on Sustained Resistance: Sovereignty and the Collapse of Restraint
February 14, 2026
International law has never been self‑enforcing. It works only when states collectively treat violations as intolerable. Once powerful actors discover that coercive territorial change carries minimal cost, the system shifts from rule‑based restraint to power‑based ordering. For states whose security depends on law rather than force, this shift is existential.