That was the name of a huge best seller of the 1950s. It showed how US representatives operating abroad - although they proclaimed the ideals of freedom and democracy for all - got to be seen as brutal fellows, out to look only for their country's interests. The two authors of the book, US citizens who had lived abroad in their country's service, were quite familiar with the problem. They and their comrades working for the US government ended up being considered as the vanguard of a predatory imperialism.

In subsequent decades, the US authorities made signficant efforts to improve perceptions about their representatives. Not least in how they framed their language and demands.

However in recent months, the discourse and conduct of the Trump administration have put this process into reverse. In its references to peace, justice and freedom, it is including claims on the assets of other countries... Ukraine rare earths, Venezuelan oil, the mineral riches of Canada and Greenland... The US seems to have again assumed the mantle of a predatory and imperial Superpower.

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INTERNATIONAL LAW

Although in many areas, international law has lacunae in how it should be understood and applied, what's still very clear is that if it is allowed to become incoherent, all its relevance will disappear. International law should apply in the same way for all states, the big ones as well as the small ones. Some of its core principles cannot be put into practice loosely, depending on who they be will be applied to. It is true that with time new principles emerge which push against older ones... as has happened to a certain extent with human rights, when they became accepted as subject to universal observance.

Yet, at present, a tacit agreement that the claims of the bigger powers take precedence over the rights of the "smaller" ones seems to be spreading. This is generating incoherence in the diplomatic arguments that are advanced, and an attitude that is reminiscent of the Wild West, where what's right and lawful is the position of those who know how to shoot and are ready to do it.

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MULTIPOLAR

During the Cold War, the brutal confrontations (which luckily never triggered a war) between the "West" and the "East" created huge tension for countries which preferred not to side with one or the other. In those days, I remember how in many of the so-called non-aligned countries, the dream about better times revolved around a world which instead of being dominated by two Superpower poles, would develop into one where different regions would be autonomously powerful.  Such a multipolar world, it was believed, would incorporate more balancing factors, much fewer confrontations, more justice and more stability since hegemonism would have been eliminated.

Today we are moving towards a multipolar world (perhaps we're already in it) although the US still claims to be a global Superpower. Even so, I doubt whether today the situation has become more stable and less dangerous that at the time of the Cold War. At least there was a kind of rule book then to describe how conflicts should be framed. It doesn't appear that such a rule book exists as of now.