If rules bend for the powerful, they break for the vulnerable

More than two decades ago, as a young and admittedly idealistic MA student at the London Centre for International Relations ( IR) at the University of Kent, I remember sitting with a quiet unease.

I struggled with the dominant view that the world is governed less by ideals and more by power, strategy and the logic of survival (seemingly ). The leading IR Theorist , Hans Morgenthau spoke of power politics and raison d’état with unsentimental clarity. Kenneth Waltz reduced international politics to structural compulsion under anarchy. The message was stark: power is the currency, survival the priority, and morality secondary to national interest. The system, we were told, is inherently anarchic in the Hobbesian sense and power itself can manufacture “order.”At the time, I resisted that conclusion. It felt too cold. Too detached from human consequence.

Today, watching the unfolding escalation involving the United States, Israel, Iran and their respective allies, those lectures feel less abstract. It increasingly seems that Morgenthau and Waltz were not theorising the past. They were diagnosing the present. Power politics, structural pressure and security competition are fully in play. Anarchy appears to be stripping away liberal pretence.And yet the deeper question remains: are we witnessing the triumph of realism, or the stress testing of international society itself?

Waltz reminded us that anarchy is the ordering principle of international politics. In such a system, survival drives behaviour. Security dilemmas intensify. Pre-emptive force becomes rationalised as necessity.

But Hedley Bull insisted that although the system is anarchic, it is not devoid of order. It is sustained by shared norms, sovereignty, diplomacy and limits on the use of force. Those norms are what make the system predictable and navigable for middle and small powers.

The concern today is not that force is being used. Force has always been part of international politics. The concern is the expanding elasticity of “self defence” and “security necessity.” When these doctrines stretch beyond carefully defined legal limits, normative restraint weakens.

The UN Charter is explicit. Article 2(4) prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. The only recognised exceptions are the inherent right of self defence under Article 51 in response to an armed attack, and collective action authorised by the Security Council under Chapter VII. When these boundaries blur, predictability erodes.And when predictability erodes, we edge closer to the Hobbesian condition where life without order becomes, in his words, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”

For Africa and the broader Global South, this is not theoretical. It is structural. If rules are interpreted primarily by the powerful, they become uncertain for the vulnerable.This is where the African Union, ECOWAS and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation must move beyond cautiously drafted statements designed not to offend. These institutions represent vast populations and strategic geography. If they seek meaningful reform of global governance, including credible representation at the Security Council’s highest level, this is the moment to demonstrate principled leadership.

Leadership requires clarity and consistency:

• A firm defence of the prohibition on the use of force as enshrined in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, subject only to the narrow exceptions under Article 51 and Security Council authorisation under Chapter VII
• Unified regional positions rather than fragmented diplomacy
• The courage to articulate principle even when it may discomfort Washington, Tehran or any other capital

A seat at the table of global power is not earned through calibrated silence. It is earned through normative credibility.

Perhaps the younger student who resisted the cold logic of realism was not naïve after all. He was searching for evidence that law and principle could temper power.

That search continues.

And this is not a moment for passive balance. It is a moment for principled unity.