I have friends, both Asian and Transatlantic, who cheer on recent US international actions. They cite a combination of Might Makes Right, and how MAGA and America First are, adjusting for country identity, principles that every sovereign nation should have responsibility to practice.

The unspoken idea, I reckon, is they want their own nation too to act however is best for itself.

As an economist, I agree: far-sighted, rational, strategic, calculated optimization is the way to go.

There is difficulty, however, with applying that view to America's actions in the world right now. That arises when we ask how is the US administration dealing with America's current domestic circumstances. This is an administration that has militarized American city streets against the American people. It has ridden roughshod over American ideals, the US Constitution, US law, the checks and balances afforded by the legislative and executive branches of American government. It has undermined the patriotic and professional men and women who serve to raise the economic well-being of the American people and to protect the American people from military and security threats. This is an administration that sees no conflict of interest in enriching the Presidential family from the President's state actions.

Whatever the Might Makes Right appeal might be for patriots, populists, and zealots, the problem is this particular Might Makes Right doesn't stop outside your national boundaries. It marches right in and operates on you. For the American people Might Makes Right has been neither particularly MAGA nor America First. It has been not far-sighted, strategic, rational, or calculated. It is not normal.

Along with over 80% of humanity I live and work outside the Great Powers. I neither condemn nor cheer on Great Power vicissitudes. Instead, as an academic my job is to think of mechanisms that help protect us from them. To that end I have been writing about and researching strategies of Alignment, Acquiescence, and Mitigation. LSE's Katia Konopelko provides a nuanced reading of these, and takes them further.