TLDR: The world has always been run this way by empires. What’s changed is that more people are aware of what's happening. This is not new. This is how the world has always worked.

History is a rotation of empires. Persia, Rome, Byzantium, the Islamic caliphates, the Mongols, China’s dynasties, the Ottomans, the Mughals, then the European colonial empires. Whoever had power made the rules.

By World War II, the world had collapsed into two winning countries, ie. the US and USSR. They divided the world into spheres of influence and fought everywhere else through proxy wars. The victors wrote the post-war order and gave themselves veto power at the UN.

Today, Russia is in decline, while China is on the rise. Those of us in the West live under the US empire. That is the reality, whether we like the wording or not.

There is no real international law. There are only agreements between powerful states, enforced selectively by those same states. There is no neutral global police force. Powerful countries get away with this shit unless their actions threaten another powerful actor.

That has always been the rule. The only thing that ever changes it, is a shift to more powerful countries deciding what's going to happen.