Trump's expansionist moves threaten the rules-based order in place since the second world war

For many what is most concerning is how Donald Trump's actions are creating a permissive space

- Peter Beaumont

The post-second world war taboo on acquiring territory through force is being unravelled by a generation of political leaders, led by expansionist threats from Donald Trump that are unprecedented for a US president.

Experts say a combination of the Russian aggression against Ukraine and Trump's comments explicitly pushing for the US to acquire Canada, Gaza, Greenland and the Panama canal is fuelling a permissive environment that threatens long-recognised borders and the international rules-based order in existence since the war.

The norm, enshrined in article 2 of the UN charter of 1945, says: "All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state."

While Trump's threats have so far remained just that, the new pursuit of expansionist goals is more concretely visible elsewhere, drawing comparisons to a modern-day version of the board game Risk.

The headline in an essay in the current issue of Foreign Affairs puts it bluntly: "Conquest is back."

In Africa, Rwanda's autocratic president Paul Kagame's backing for the M23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been driven by his adherence to a "greater Rwanda" policy.

In the Middle East, Israel's far right is pushing aggressively for formal annexation of the occupied West Bank, while its military is involved in what it now says is an open-ended presence in parts of Syria and Lebanon.