Thucydides couldn’t be more eloquent: “The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.” President Trump embodies this aphorism in this anarchic world structure. His administration, therefore, acts according to the principles of the Iron Laws of the World – power, force, and strength. In these commands, a state’s sovereignty appears not to be absolute; rather, it is contingent upon a state’s hard power – military and economic might. Trump has applied these laws in his recent foreign escapades, accentuating their greater utility.
Since Trump assumed power in 2025, he has been threatening to annex Canada and make it the 51st state of the United States. Canadian sovereignty held no significance here. While such a threat was initially dismissed as mere banter, it later proved serious. There is no reason for Canada to join the U.S., and the U.S. has no compelling argument to make Canada a U.S. state. Trump exudes such superciliousness and disrespect toward Canada because the U.S. is a great power, and Canada is not.
Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, has also been a target of Trump’s annexation threats. He became so fixated with it that he even considered using military force to annex it. Trump argued that the U.S. needed Greenland for national security, as China and Russia are making inroads there. Denmark cannot forcibly stop the U.S; hence, it could only appease Trump with other deals to preserve its territorial sovereignty. If Denmark were militarily strong, the U.S. would not have behaved so belligerently.
Venezuela is a sovereign country, yet it is hostage to the will of the U.S. It could not resist the recent U.S. invasion due to being deficient in hard power; consequently, President Maduro was abducted from this house and thrown into a U.S. jail. The justification of this operation was to stop the flow of drugs coming into the U.S., cut off oil supplies to Cuba, and oust the Chinese, Russians, and the Iranians operating from Venezuela. Furthermore, the Western Hemisphere is an American turf, so it is off-limits to other great powers.
For years, the U.S. has been pressuring Iran to dismantle its nuclear weapons programme. The American assessment is that if Iran acquired nuclear weapons, then it would dominate the region and be an existential threat to Israel. Additionally, its nuclear capability will encourage others, such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt, to develop their own nuclear programmes; such a nuclear proliferation race is a direct threat to world peace.
Even as a sovereign nation, Iran is stymied from fully pursuing its key security deterrent; it must first obtain approval from the elite group, nations with nuclear weapons, to continue its nuclear programme. The group would not allow it. As a result, when Iran defied the elites, they responded with force. Consequently, in June 2025, the U.S., in cahoots with Israel, attacked Iran to take down its nuclear development programme. A second attack on Iran now seems likely for the same reason: because the U.S. has the power to do it.
Nigeria is the largest sovereign country in Africa. Nevertheless, the U.S. launched its Christmas Attack on Nigeria to protect Christians and their churches from militants. Protecting Christians is Nigeria’s own responsibility. How Nigeria manages its internal affairs is its business; other nations are prohibited from interfering under international law, as enshrined in the UN Charter. However, because Nigeria lacks the means to stop the U.S. from attacking, that prohibition does not apply. This is the burden weak states must bear.
Finally, the U.S. has also weaponised its trade policies. It is at liberty to impose trade sanctions and high tariffs on nations as it sees fit for its own advantage. Take, for example, the U.S. sanctions on the sale of Russian oil. Those sanctions bar Europe and other countries from buying oil from Russia. The Europeans honoured the U.S. sanctions; however, China and India did not. They have been buying oil from Russia before and after the sanctions were imposed. As a result, both countries have been slapped with high tariffs, so they tackled the matter differently.
India, being comparatively weak in hard power, faces a 50% U.S. tariff on its goods and services. It does not have effective bargaining chips work with. China, on the other hand, equipped with hard power, forced the U.S. to lower tariffs in exchange for its own demands. For example, China banned the export of its critical minerals to the U.S., which is essential to the American auto and defense industries. Facing such a fierce counterpunch, the U.S. had to back down and lower the tariff on China.
The notion of a rules-based world order has always been a sham. The rules were written and meant to be followed mainly by weaker states. The powerful states would be exempted from it. The aforementioned cases demonstrate how the U.S. continues to violate the sovereignty of other nations with its hard power.
Besides the U.S., other countries also enjoy the exemption privilege. For example, the elite group condoned Israel to possess nuclear weapons and commit genocide in Gaza, Russia annexed Crimea, China is posturing its military power in the South and East China Seas, and the U.K. is refusing to transfer the entire Chagos Islands to Mauritius. These illegitimate acts stem from the Iron Laws of the world, which hold that power, force, and strength determine whose sovereignty is more sacred and whose is not.
Due to an anarchic world structure, a conflict between sovereignty and the Iron Laws of the world is unavoidable. Therefore, a nation’s hard power is the ultimate safeguard for its sovereignty. As the aphorism goes, the strong will survive, but the fate of the weak depends on the strong; thus, they remain in a constant state of insecurity. That is the greatest threat to the sovereignty of weaker states.
The writer is a Doctoral Researcher, International Relations, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM)
