Silence is the loudest sound in a dying democracy.
I often sit by my window here in Tirana, watching the clouds roll over the Dajti mountains while my wheelchair rests still against the frame. Being unable to walk gives you a unique perspective on power; you learn quickly that physical dominance is not the same as authority. In physics, we know that applying force always generates resistance, yet in geopolitics, we seem to have forgotten this fundamental law. The energy coming from the West lately feels less like leadership and more like a fist slamming repeatedly onto a table.
We have been fed a comfortable lie that a "world policeman" keeps the neighborhood safe. We are told that if a nation possesses enough aircraft carriers, its morality is automatic and unquestionable. And perhaps most dangerously, we convince ourselves that if we just look away from the chaos at the edges of the map, the bombs won't eventually fall on our own heads.
But the data from the last year tells a different, darker story.
The timeline of 2025 reads like a catalogue of unchecked aggression rather than a diplomatic ledger . Since the official start of his second term in January, Donald Trump has bypassed the handshake in favor of the warhead . It started early, with airstrikes on alleged ISIS locations in Somalia back in February, and escalated to "superbombs" dropped on Iranian nuclear sites in Fordow and Natanz by June .
The smell of cordite has replaced the scent of pine.
Even Christmas Day wasn't spared, as cruise missiles struck Nigeria under the pretext of hitting jihadist militants . This isn't defense; it is a systemic projection of violence.
The justification offered is that the US is acting as "international police," a concept that holds no water legally since police powers end at a nation's borders . This excuse crumbles completely when you look at the recent kidnapping of the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, intended for a sham trial in the US .
Here is where the hypocrisy becomes suffocating.
While the administration claims to be fighting a war on drugs to justify kidnapping a foreign head of state, President Trump simultaneously granted a pardon to Juan Orlando Hernández . Hernández is the former Honduran president convicted by a US court for trafficking over 400 tons of cocaine .
Let that sink in for a moment.
A man who flooded American streets with narcotics walks free, while a geopolitical rival is snatched for a show trial. This proves that the "war on drugs" is merely a mask for political domination .
The true motive is far older and colder than justice.
It is about control over Venezuela's immense oil reserves, which are among the largest in the world . By explicitly citing the Monroe Doctrine—a 19th-century colonialist idea that treats the Americas as the US "backyard"—the administration is stripping away the pretense of modern diplomacy . They don't want a democracy in Venezuela; they want a manager who answers to Trump, not to the Venezuelan people .
This return to the "law of the jungle" is contagious.
We are watching the erosion of the international order established after World War II. When the US decides it can kidnap leaders and bomb sovereign nations at will, it sets a terrifying precedent. We already see European nations like Great Britain and France conducting unilateral strikes in Syria with a casualness that should chill us to the bone .
The United Nations feels increasingly like a ghost town.
We have reached a tipping point where over 75% of the world's population now lives under autocratic regimes . The silence from Western institutions, including the European Commission, regarding these violations is deafening .
Bullying might secure a barrel of oil today, but it destroys the strategic foundation of tomorrow.
Stability cannot be bombed into existence. Legitimacy cannot be kidnapped. As a physicist, I can tell you that systems under this much pressure eventually shatter. We must reject this bullying and demand a return to a world where states interact with mutual respect.
Without respect, there are no solutions—only an endless, deafening cycle of violence.
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