Recklessness in the Exercise of US Sovereignty: International Infractions and Global Disorder
Bola A. Akinterinwa
There is no war of a regional or global scale that has not been originated by the Europeans, or that has not engendered disorder. The 100-year old war between the kingdoms of England and France and civil war in France in the late Middle Ages; the most destructive 30-year old war in Central Europe from 1618 to 1648 and which dovetailed into the signing of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia; the 1870 Franco-German or Franco-Prussian war; the 28 July, 1914 to 11 November 1918 World War I, predicated by the killing of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28 June 1914 and described as ‘the Great War’; as well as the 1 September, 1939 to 2 September, 1945 World War II, clearly illustrate this observation.
The establishment of the United Nations Organisation (UNO) to replace the League of Nations was aimed at preventing a new war and maintain international peace and security. San Francisco, where the UN Charter was done, is in the United States. The world headquarters of the same UNO is in New York, United States. More interestingly, the agent provocateur of the emerging World War III is again the United States of President Donald Trump who has no regard for international rule of law. He does not only underscores an ‘America First’ policy attitude and ‘Making America Great Again’ in international relations, but has also opted for the unilateral use of force to recklessly promote nationalism and global disorder.
The deepening situation of disorderliness and violations of international law has prompted China to plead with the international community to prevent Japan from returning to the path of militarism. As told by the Xinhua News Agency, Sun Lei, the Chargé d’Affaires of China’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, in his appeal at the first session of the Preparatory Committee for the UN Conference of Plenipotentiaries on Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity, ‘the international community should jointly safeguard the victorious outcomes of World War II, including the Tokyo trials, uphold the international order based on international law, prevent Japan from reverting to the old and pernicious path of militarism.’ Most unfortunately, however, it is not only Japan that is about to thread the path of militarism, the current trend in international relations is that the big powers, especially Russia and the United States, with the complicit silence of their allies, are also threading the same path. The complicit silence is a major dynamic of the recklessness that has come to characterise the exercise of US sovereignty in international relations.
Recklessness in the Exercise of US
Sovereignty
Grosso modo, the exercise of sovereignty in international relations is increasingly defined by policies of manu militari at both the levels of the big and small powers. For example, while the small and the medium powers, the former colonial countries, are struggling to free themselves completely from the scourge of hegemonic and colonial taint, the big powers, led by the United States, are recklessly using force to recolonise the world. The United States of Donald Trump first began with the idea of seeking to annex Canada as another constitutive State of the United States. The origin of the idea is traceable to the end of the American Civil War, when some American politicians asked Britain to cede the province of Canada as reparations for British-built goods and ships sold to the Confederate citizens. Attempts were also unsuccessfully made to invade Canada during the Invasion of Quebec of 1775 and War of 1812. Consequently, the recent attempt by Donald Trump to annex Canada is nothing more than a revisiting of the old quest. Canada has considered the revisiting of the idea as very insulting and has, therefore, set it aside.
Secondly, Donald Trump came up with the idea of a Board of Peace in his 20-point Gaza ceasefire plan and extended invitation to Canada to join the proposed Board. Donald Trump described the Board in his message of withdrawal of the invitation extended to Prime Minister Mark Carney as ‘the most prestigious Board of Leaders ever assembled, at any time.’ Ab initio, the Board was limited in scope of membership and objective – overseeing the next phase of the peace plan for the Gaza Strip. In November 2025, the UN Security Council approved the idea of the Board of Peace as part of a broader plan for peace, particularly in terms of establishment of a security force in Gaza. The Charter of the Board of Peace wants a new international organisation that ‘seeks to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict.’
Today, the Board’s scope has been redefined to include other global conflicts and membership of the Board has also been thrown open. On the side lines of the World Economic Forum (WEF), on Thursday, January 22nd, 2026 during which the Charter of the Board was to be signed, countries like Argentina, Turkey, Hungary, Bulgaria, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Qatar, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Morocco, Paraguay and Pakistan were at the signing ceremony. US major traditional allies were reportedly not there probably for reasons of uninteresting and controversial conditionality.
For example, Donald Trump will be the only Chairman of the Board and can only be replaced through his ‘voluntary resignation or as a result of incapacity, as determined by a unanimous vote of the Executive Board,’ of which the pioneering members are ‘Secretary of State, Marco Rubio; Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner; former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair; and World Bank President, Ajay Banga.’
Thirdly, the tenure of membership of the Board is defined by the principle of weighted voting, according to which a member’s financial contributions determine the number of its votes in an organisation. In the same vein, no member can serve more than a term of three years unless such member accepts to contribute more than the preliminary $1 billion required for membership. Basic membership qualification is payment of $1billion which ‘simply offers permanent membership to partner countries who demonstrate deep commitment to peace, security, and prosperity.’
It is useful to note here the rejection of the Board and concerns of the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, at the 2026 World Economic Forum (WEF) held in Davos, Switzerland. Mark Carney talked about ‘the rupture in world order, the end of a nice story, and the beginning of a brutal reality where geopolitics among the great powers is not subject to any constraints.’ More importantly, he submitted that ‘other countries, particularly middle powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that embodies our values like respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of States. The power of the less powerful begins with honesty.’ And perhaps most importantly, he recalled that ‘every day we are reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry. That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must. This aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable – the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself. And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along. To accommodate. To avoid trouble. To hope that compliance will buy safety. It won’t.’
This statement is loaded with many implications not only for Canada, but, grosso modo, for the international community. For Canada, the statement is simply saying that Canada is no longer prepared to acquiesce to the status quo. Additionally, Canada is also calling on the international community to do the same: rejection of the status quo. As the Canadian Prime Minister put it, the multilateral institutions on which middle powers relied, that is, WTO, the UN, COP, which are the architecture of collective problem-solving, ‘are greatly diminished. As a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions. They must develop greater strategic autonomy in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance, and supply chains.’
Two points are noteworthy in this Canadian postulation at the level of Nigeria. Canada is simply asking for the restoration of Professor Akinwande Bolaji Akinyemi’s call for the Concert of Medium Powers (CMP) which began with some meetings and was renamed Lagos Forum to avoid being seen as an anti-West movement. While Professor Akinyemi talked about ‘medium powers,’ Prime Minister Carney is talking about ‘middle powers.’ ‘Medium’ and ‘middle’ are synonymous. Put differently, what was not considered reasonable, objectivist, and self-promoting under the military regime of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida about forty years ago, is what Canada is now calling for at the 2026 Davos World Economic Forum.
Most importantly, Canada has also called for ‘greater strategic autonomy’ in order to be able to respond to the increasing sovereignty recklessness being exercised by President Trump. In the words of Carney, ‘our new approach rests on what Alexander Stubb has termed “rules-based realism” – or to put it another way, we aim to be principled and pragmatic.’ In this regard, ‘principled in our commitment to fundamental values: sovereignty and territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force except when consistent with the UN Charter, respect for human rights, pragmatic in recognising that progress is often incremental, that interests diverge, that not every partner shares our values. We are engaging broadly, strategically, with open eyes. We actively take on the world as it is, not wait for a world we wish to be.’
Again, this Canadian position and ambition is not different from Nigeria’s own strategic calculation. Canada is talking about ‘greater strategic autonomy’ while Nigeria under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is talking about ‘foreign policy grand strategy,’ which his Foreign Minister, Ambassador Yusuf Maitama, has subjected to intellection. By implication, it simply means that Canada is pushing for the restoration of Nigeria’s Concert of Medium Power (CMP) in another form. Canada can always count on Nigeria’s support as Professor Akinyemi is not only currently the Chairman of the Governing Council of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), the chief implementer and apostle of the strategic autonomy policy is also Ambassador Tuggar, the Foreign Minister. Thus, there is a good basis for a Nigeriano-Canadian partnership in helping to stop the recklessness in the US exercise of its political sovereignty which is currently generating a global disorder.
International Infractions and Global Disorder
The recklessness in the exercise of US sovereignty in Venezuela, and the threats of use of force to acquire Greenland and Chagos Archipelago, which comprises 55 islands, and over which the United Kingdom currently has legitimate sovereignty, are pointing to disorderliness in international relations. The United States has used brute force to impose its hegemony in Venezuela, but still at the stage of threatening, regarding renaming of and sovereignty over Gulf of Mexico. Greenland, and Chagos Archipelago.
Concerning the Gulf of Mexico, President Trump has signed an Executive Order 14172 which instructed the ‘Interior Secretary to adopt the name Gulf of America, specifying an area of the U.S. continental shelf, extending to the seaward boundary with Mexico and Cuba.’ The federal agencies are to begin to adopt the use of the new name with effect from January 24, 2024. President Trump has set aside February 9, 2025 to be ‘Gulf of America Day.’ Various opinion polls, such as those carried out by the Marquette University and the University of Florida in February 2025, showed that the majority of the interviewees were opposed to the renaming. However, the renaming became a fait accompli as from January 24, 2026 To a great extent, every coastal country cannot but have its own continental shelf. For as long as what is called Gulf of America does not go beyond the maritime boundary of the United States, there should not be any qualms. Going beyond the boundary cannot but be a policy recklessness.
On Venezuela, the United States not only openly threatened the territorial and political sovereignty of Venezuela, but also carried out a unilateral aggression of the country, on Friday, 3rd January, 2026. The aggression was meant to have taken place earlier on December 31st 2025, but had to be delayed for reasons of bad weather. More than 150 military aircraft soared through the skies into the compound of President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas after 2.00am local time on Saturday. He was captured with his wife, Cilia Flores, and were both flown away to New York at 3.29 am ET. They appeared in the court on January 5, 2026 and pleaded not guilty of the charges preferred against them. Consequently, they were remanded in US custody until the next hearing, scheduled for March 17, 2026. Many issues are quite noteworthy about the U.S. aggression.
First, 100 Venezuelans died but no American life was lost during the attack. This is most unfortunate because the killing of civilians was indiscriminate. Sustained force was used without due process. Venezuela was taken unawares, and therefore, had no military resistance. There might have been some iota of local complicity.
Secondly, the United States is the accuser and the judge in its own case. In this regard, the United States has accused President Maduro of engagement in illegal drugs and hosting of foreign adversaries of the United States, as well as ‘acquiring menacing, offensive weapons that threatened the U.S.’ Apart from these concerns, there is no disputing the fact that the United States wants to control Venezuela’s oil industry, impose a U.S. foreign policy doctrine that asserts U.S. influence in the Western Hemisphere, as well compel a regime change. The U.S. wants a more friendly government in power in Venezuela. These are some of the major dynamics of the January 3 assault on Venezuela.
Thirdly, even though President Trump largely relied on Article II of his presidential powers, which enables him to defend the U.S. in the event of threats to it, we still strongly observe that President Trumps presumed self-defence attacks on Venezuela are a conscious violation of international law. Even if Donald Trump is not an adherent of international law, it is still unlawful and unacceptable to disregard international law and at the same time seeking to impose an American order on the rules-based global community.
US aggression on Venezuela is a violation of the international diplomatic law which prevents the arrest and prosecution of foreign Heads of Government because of their diplomatic immunity. It is also unlawful to be threatening sovereign governments the way Donald Trump has done in Venezuela. On January 5, 2026 Donald Trump told Vice President Delcy Rodriguez of Venezuela that she would ‘pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro’ if she does not submit to U.S. demands.’ But what are these demands? They are basically the requirement of her readiness to accept U.S. control of Venezuela: Venezuela would not hold elections in the next 30 days and that the U.S. would ‘run the country’ until such a time that it can have a ‘safe, proper, and judicious transition.’ Besides, the U.S. wants Venezuela to provide 30-50 million barrels of ‘sanctioned oil’ to the U.S., worth about $2.3 billion. As explained by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the U.S intends to sell the oil in the open market and control the proceeds to benefit the interests of both Americans and Venezuelans. And perhaps more clearly, President Trump has revealed the underlying truth about the intended U.S. control of Venezuela in the following words: ‘Venezuela would use the revenue from any deal it makes to purchase ‘only American Made Products…, in other words, Venezuela is committing to doing business with the U.S. as their principal partner.’
Regarding Greenland, located in the Arctic region of the world, it is not only the United States that has been showing interest in the Greenland, other competing powers also have territorial ambitions. This is because of the perception of Greenland as a geo-political asset with vast resources. Greenland has a population of about 60,000 people. It is the biggest island in the world and almost equidistant to Washington and Moscow. However, it is a self-governing territory under the sovereignty of Denmark since the 13th century, particularly as from the late 18th century during the expansion of imperialism when Denmark declared Greenland as its colony and got it ratified by the 1814 Treaty of Kiel.
As noted in engelsbergideas.com, ‘given the US propensity to purchase extensive territories from others – think of Manhattan, Alaska, and Louisiana – it should come as no surprise that the US has had its eyes on Greenland, the purchase of which from Denmark for whatever sum – $1 trillion has been mooted – would make the US the second largest country on earth after Russia. And, more importantly, it would offer strategic advantage in the North Atlantic and the Arctic, as well as access to the largest deposits of rare earth minerals outside China, and huge offshore oil and gas fields.’
Put differently, while the United States has been showing much interest in acquiring Greenland in the mania of the purchase of the Danish West Indies (now Virgin Islands, which is an unincorporated territory of the US) in 1917, Denmark has remained the major opponent to the US ambition. There is no disputing the fact that, in terms of territorial sovereignty, Greenland is Danish. When Denmark had dispute with Norway in 1931, regarding who had sovereignty over Greenland, the Permanent Court of Justice ruled in favour of Denmark on the basis of the Treaty of Kiel.
The United States did not bother much about this court judgment as, in April 1940, following the German invasion of Denmark and when the US was yet to enter into World War II, the United States deployed its Coast Guard as volunteers to secure Greenland in application of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine to European colonies in the North Atlantic. This was followed by the occupation of Greenland in 1941 when the US declared war on Germany and Japan. The situational reality as of today is that Denmark has not shown preparedness to concede its sovereignty to the United States or offer Greenland for sale.
As regards Chagos Archipelago, also referred to as the Chagos Islands or the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), comprises 55 islands of which Diego Garcia is the largest, and apparently for this reason, houses the joint UK-US military base. Chagos does not have any indigenous population as the Chagossian people had been forcibly removed by Britain. Access is very restricted to military personnel and contractors. It has a land area of about 60 sq km and covering a vast ocean area. It is administered by the Foreign Office in London. More important, the archipelago is located between East Africa and Indonesia. Diego Garcia was detached from Mauritius and established in 1965 as a colony of Britain. The removal of the indigenous people, (Ilois/Chagossians), which began in the 1960s, was to pave the way for the establishment of the Anglo-American military base. As of today, the displacement of the indigenous inhabitants remains an unsettled controversy. It is also against this background that the ongoing diplomatic lull between the United States and the United Kingdom should be understood.
First, it should be recalled that Britain pledged on October 3, 2024 to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. Last week, Britain made good its agreement by conceding sovereignty over the islands to Mauritius. Donald Trump was most angered by the agreement. He described the concession of sovereignty to Mauritius as an act of ‘total weakness’ and ‘great stupidity.’ Without any whiff of doubt, the U.K. decision is an expression of exclusive sovereignty but Donald Trump described it as an act of ‘great stupidity.’ This is more than recklessness in speech, more Hitler-like in arrogance, more brutish and undiplomatic in language, and most disturbingly, more barbaric in presentation. The description of the UK decision as an expression of total weakness is decent, regardless of the wrongness or correctness of the observation. What is unacceptable is President Trump’s presentation of the good people of the United States as uncivilised. The British and the Americans forced out the indigenous people of the islands for their selfish reasons. Now that the British came to their senses and opted to allow the indigenous Chagossians to return to their natal homes, why should Donald Trump be hostile to it? Why his much bitterness? There is nothing wrong in seeking to Make America Great Again but there is much wrongness in doing so by destruction of other peoples by manu militari, and by absolute disregard for the rule of law.
Most unfortunately, the Chinese that are seen and considered by the United States as their arch enemies or rivals do not see themselves as competitors for now. They think that they are superior to the Americans culturally, historically, and demographically. As argued by a Chinese at the Margalla Dialogue 2025 on the “Future of Global Order, Cooperation or Confrontation,” China does not want to be a superpower, because of the negative connotation of superpower in Chinese language and culture, but wants to be a super-population. Superpower is a negative term, a derogatory term in the Chinese language. To be a superpower means ‘to be abrasive, very sharp elbows, and for example, pushes you around, and sometimes hold a gun at your head, this is something China will never do. Only China and India can talk rightly about super-population. The Chinese want to be the leader in the context of super-population, not in the area of superpower politics. Apart from this, historically, China has been existing for over 5000 years, ‘and for most of the times, there was no United States,’ which will only be celebrating next year as its 250th founding anniversary. But over the thousands of years of Chinese existence, there have been various existential challenges which were overcome. Chinese civilisation ‘has never been interrupted, that means, when we look at the United States, we have a historical perspective.’ The 5000+ years of existence have enabled the Chinese to predict the next 5000 years. More significantly, the Chinese governance philosophy is that leaders should not do unto others what they do not want others to do unto them. If the Americans want to do unto Chinese what they do not want others to do to America, the Chinese will respond by ‘shocking’ the Americans.
This is the perspective of the Chinese people. Consequently, Donald Trump cannot afford the luxury of disregarding international law in an attempt to fight the Chinese, especially through trade tariff to which the Chinese have always responded, ‘we don’t care.’ Donald Trump should not limit his foreign policy objective to just making the United States great again but should seek to avoid sustaining anti-Americanism that will rubbish whatever level of greatness is to be attained in the long run. It is by so doing that the wide path leading to global disorderliness can be narrowed and that the universally acknowledged good image of and respect for America can be restored and sustained.
