Lately, the news coming out of Washington has been reminding a lot of us of an old, well-worn pattern in politics: when things start sliding toward more authoritarian control inside the country, you almost always see a more aggressive, muscle-flexing approach overseas at the same time. Leaders who are busy tightening their grip at home tend to reach for military tools abroad. So the sudden loud talk about sending troops into Venezuela, or the steady march toward a full-blown clash with Iran, isn’t just some one-off headline. It’s part of a deliberate push to put the United States back on top of the global stage, acting as the unchallenged boss who doesn’t need anyone’s permission.

That’s why the No King movement—born out of anger over democratic backsliding here at home—can’t stay locked inside a purely domestic bubble if it wants to make any real difference. To actually push back against concentrated power, it has to face the fact that the same forces driving authoritarianism inside the country are fueling the same kind of bullying abroad.

The usual way people talk about these issues pretends there’s a clean wall between “what happens at home” and “what we do overseas.” But that wall has always been an illusion. Both old-school realists and critics of empire have pointed out for decades that the way power gets used in one place mirrors how it gets used in the other. When checks and balances erode here, when oversight gets ignored and laws start to feel optional, it doesn’t stay contained—it lines up perfectly with a foreign policy that says “we do what we want, when we want, and we don’t need allies or treaties slowing us down.” In other words, the saber-rattling abroad isn’t some optional extra; it’s the natural next step of what’s happening inside.

At the heart of all this chest-thumping is the old slogan “peace through strength.” It sounded tough and sensible during the Cold War, but today it’s been twisted into a blank check for preemptive strikes and open-ended military adventures. The problem is baked in: you can’t build real peace on a foundation of constant threats and raw dominance. It’s unstable by design, and deep down it’s less about keeping the peace than about keeping an empire running. History keeps handing us the same painful lesson—from Vietnam to Iraq—that pouring everything into military overreach doesn’t deliver the promised wins; it just leaves behind mountains of debt, broken trust, and strategic headaches that last for decades.

Look at the current moves toward Venezuela and the growing pressure on Iran. They’re not isolated flare-ups. They’re concrete pieces of a bigger strategy that’s all about proving American hegemony through sheer force. Wrap that strategy in nationalist and populist language and it becomes a powerful tool for rallying people at home: “We’re under threat out there, so we need a strong hand in here.” It creates a vicious loop—external enemies are used to justify more power at the top, and more power at the top makes it easier to start the next fight abroad.

That’s exactly why the No King movement can’t limit itself to protecting democratic norms inside the United States. If “kingship” really means unaccountable power, then today’s version doesn’t stop at the border. The same logic plays out on the world stage: one country deciding it can impose its will on anyone else, ignoring the idea that nations should be equal under the rules, and treating military force as the default way to settle things.

Scholars from very different schools—those who study institutions and those who critique empire—agree on this much: when democracy weakens at home, respect for international rules and cooperation weakens too. You can’t fix one without tackling the other. Trying to restore democracy inside the country while ignoring the imperial habits abroad is like patching the roof while the whole foundation is crumbling.

So what does that mean in practice? The movement needs to widen its lens. It should start talking openly about the direct link between domestic power grabs and foreign wars. It should reach out and build real connections with people in other countries who are also living under the pressure of American military reach. And it should put forward a clear alternative: real diplomacy first, multilateral teamwork instead of go-it-alone threats, and a genuine return to international law instead of “might makes right.”

In the end, the choice isn’t just tactical—it’s about the soul of the movement. It can stay a narrow, home-only defense against the symptoms of authoritarianism, or it can grow into something bigger that attacks the root causes wherever they appear, whether that’s in Congress, the White House, or on the other side of the world. The second path is harder, no question. But it’s also the only one that can actually break the cycle where domestic power grabs and foreign wars keep feeding each other.

Right now, with the old “peace through strength” rhetoric making a comeback and the idea of a new American empire gaining ground again, any fight to protect democracy that stops at the water’s edge is going to fall short. If No King truly wants to challenge the logic of unchecked power, it has to challenge that logic everywhere it shows up—at home and abroad. Only by connecting those two battles can we build a defense of democracy that actually lasts.

© Eurasia Review