I recently attended a Palestine solidarity event in East London where a Lebanese-born Palestinian woman in the audience shared her family’s tragic history across three generations. She spoke of her parents, forced to flee Palestine during the Nakba, her own experience of escaping Lebanon during the 1982 Israeli-Lebanese War, and her daughter’s recent flight to the U.K. following the latest chapter in Israel’s repeated assaults on Lebanon. Her voice trembled as she recounted this legacy of displacement, tears blurring the lines between her words and her pain. Importantly, as a victim of Israel’s decadeslong barbarism, she targeted the U.S., but not Israel itself, as the ultimate driver of the tragedies that her family has had to endure. For it was inconceivable to her that a relatively small state like Israel could cause this level of pain and destruction without facing any consequences, if it were not enabled, and indeed aided, by a higher authority. Her words sounded like a plea for justice, yet she could not appeal to that same authority for it. Instead, she posed a desperate question to the panel: Could people in her situation ever count on China, a rising superpower, to stand up to the U.S.? Could they turn to the East for justice, a concept long-forgotten in the West?

It appears as though, with more states shifting their political and economic alliances to the East, especially toward China, their people are also increasingly looking Eastward for the justice that they feel is absent in the West. Of course, this is not because they are "Orientophiles" or "Sinophiles" who think that the East is intrinsically more just. The reason is the same as that of the political and economic shift: People seek a multipolar world in case one state, with its unmatched power as a guarantee of its absolute authority over international affairs, decides to impose on others whatever it sees fit. In other words, people yearn for a balanced world order in which the law, which is meant to ensure the security of all, cannot be easily breached whenever the hegemon feels like it. For it is no less disastrous to have a world where a hegemon acts like a tyrant than to have a world where there is no overarching authority to provide security and peace in the first place. And what good is it that we have a supposedly higher authority above individual states in the shape of the U.N. if it is dominated and frequently bypassed by the most powerful?

This brings me to a reconsideration of the social contract theory as it was articulated by the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes in the 17th century. Hobbes painted a grim portrait of the natural condition of humanity, where life, stripped of order, becomes a relentless struggle for survival – "nasty, brutish and short." In this state of nature, fear reigns, and chaos is the law of the land, as individuals, driven by self-interest, clash in the pursuit of security. To escape this endless war of all against all, people forge a social contract, trading a portion of their freedom for the promise of peace. The sovereign, like a towering leviathan, enforces this fragile "covenant," establishing forcefully that words are not whispers in the wind. And for this, the sovereign girds its sword, because "covenants without the sword are but words and of no strength to secure man at all."

However, on the global stage, no such leviathan stands to command individual states. This is where the concept of anarchy, in the context of international relations, becomes relevant. There is no higher authority to hold states accountable, no sovereign to prevent the strong from devouring the weak. In this lawless terrain, covenants between states often crumble like paper before the storm – as the renowned political scientist John Mearsheimer writes, in this anarchic world, "there is no world state to keep countries at bay when they have profound disagreements." And without it, the world too easily reverts to its Hobbesian origins.

Yet even the presence of a global authority, a world state of sorts, might not suffice to keep the peace and hold the most powerful accountable. Just as within individual states, where the most powerful members of the society influence the government and bend the law in their favor, so too can a dominant state manipulate international institutions. In fact, this is precisely what has been happening since the founding of the most prominent international institutions. If one state holds enough sway to dominate international institutions and destroy every covenant, what force remains to challenge it? Is there a sword sharper than that of the most powerful?

Within individual states, the most powerful members of society can only be held in check by others with equivalent influence. Therefore, the hope lies in distributing power so that no single group can monopolize control. The same principle applies on the global stage. The prospect of a more secure world appears to depend on a multipolar system, where the global hegemon is challenged by other powers, such as China, preventing any one state from going unopposed. As Hobbes might suggest, perhaps a sharper sword is needed – one that makes covenants more than just words, capable of genuinely safeguarding humanity.