If We Can Beat Up Denmark, Why Can’t I Beat My Wife?

Currently, we are seeing a load of people, many of them MAGA folks, banging away at their keyboards supporting the idea that the United States, as the “World Hegemon,” can go out and grab by force anything it wants. They are arguing that “might makes right,” and if another nation or group of people don’t like it, then we can beat them up and take their stuff.

So why can’t I beat my wife when she doesn’t give me what I want?

Of course, these same folks would say that we have the “rule of law” in the United States, but that there is no “rule of law” in the world. This is patently untrue and demonstrates rank ignorance of history of law.

Supposedly, we have the so-called “International Rules-Based Order.” This is trumpeted as a “rule of law” system. However, in reality, it’s just whatever the world dictator, the United States, claims it to be at a given moment. We want to seize another nation’s resources? We call them criminals of various sorts. We want to impose our businesses on another nation? We leverage them with sanctions and blockade their trade… which, by the way, is an act of war. But how dare anyone do that to us, those Creatans!

But there’s an issue that so many supporters of poking nuclear-armed nations fail to realize. We have had international laws for centuries, typically referred to as maritime rules of trade on the high seas. While of ancient origin, this was more clearly promulgated by the youthful Dutch lawyer and theologian Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) in 1608, in his work Mare Liberum, (The Freedom of the Seas). His principal points of argument were that Spain and Portugal could not claim exclusive trading rights with other parts of the world, particularly the East Indies. In Chapter VIII, Grotius argues that by the law of nations, trade is free between all men and nations.

At the end of Chapter VIII, Grotius writes that “surely no one nation may justly oppose in any way two nations that desire to enter into a contract with each other,” this contract being in reference to trade.¹

Moreover, Grotius asserts that to destroy a nation’s right to trade freely in international waters could only be lawfully limited by the “consent of all nations.” Of course, if two nations were formally at war, then their trade was subject to interdiction. But without such a formal declaration, people of any given nation could freely trade with whomever they wished, and to interdict such trade without a declaration of war was illegal by international law.

This notion of freedom of the seas was a cornerstone argument against German submarine warfare against American shipping in the early days of both World War I and II, when the United States was still formally neutral. Germany tried to argue, and with much justification, that the United States had already taken sides and was therefore a belligerent. And while American companies were not legally forbidden to trade with Germany in both wars, the British naval blockade against Germany had them seize American vessels plying trade even to neutral European ports.

Today, on the basis of international law, Russia is more in the right than the United States. Russia has amply demonstrated that NATO is encroaching on its western borders, and insist that Ukraine remain neutral and not be part of a military alliance, and thus create a secure border. Concurrently, Russia has argued that Ukraine can join an economic association like the European Union… that is, to trade in the European marketplace. Moreover, Russia has currently done little to interdict trade between Ukraine and the rest of the world.

In contrast, the United States has blockaded numerous nations, not just Venezuela, and all without a formal declaration of war. They have seized vessels of nations on the high seas, on the flimsy pretext of “criminal activity.” They have even bombed nations on various pretexts, and again without a declaration of war. Some of these may indeed be justified, but without a declaration of war, the military actions begin to take on the hue of illegal bullying and outright piracy.

And this brings me to the consequences of all of this, of which there are principally two.

The first is that other nations will watch the actions of the United States closely. A few will praise it, like Hungary’s Viktor Orban. But the rest will momentarily remain silent. This bodes ill for the future, for most of the world, particularly the BRICS nations and the Global South, will view the United States as nothing more than a big bully engaged in illegal activities. Bullies in school get away with it for awhile, but eventually somebody stands up to them and beats the living daylights out of them. And in our case today, that somebody has nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.

Moreover, only 3% of the merchant fleet that the United States uses is U.S.-flagged. The rest are flagged from other countries. Perhaps others might start stopping and seizing these foreign-flagged ships for “criminal activity.” And why stop at ships… why not jetliners as well?

But the second consequence is, in my mind, more dangerous than the first, and I wrote about it in a previous article.² Donald Trump ran on a platform of no more foreign wars and no more regime change. And yet, we are now plunging down both roads with reckless abandon. This will alienate a small, yet significant portion of those who voted for the MAGA agenda in 2024. They will not vote for the MAGA candidates in the next round, and the Leftists will regain power. And this will be very bad for us.

So why can’t I beat my wife when I can’t get my way?³ Because in the United States we have the rule of law… at least still to some degree. On the high seas, we have the rule of law as well, but the Trump administration has now openly flaunted it. And if the current administration can ignore the rules of the high seas now, tomorrow they might decide to ignore any rule of law here at home.

And when that happens, they just might give me the go-ahead to beat my wife silly… or any other woman or weak person for that matter.

In this Hobbesian world, might makes right, where life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” It will be the rule of the powerful over the weak, of might makes right… at all levels of society, including in your own home.

And that is an ugly world to live in.

 

Russ Rodgers has several books published on Amazon.

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