At the heart of the present predicament is an unraveling of the two primary forms of political legitimation familiar in the postwar world, “input” and “output” legitimacy: the first looks to the processes by which policies are made and takes something like “the consent of the governed” as the basis of legitimacy; the second looks to whether policies, however produced, generate desirable outcomes…

On May 24, 2022, in a coordinated action, the Russian and Chinese militaries flew nuclear bombers across the Sea of Japan while U.S. president Joe Biden was in Tokyo on a state visit. The Russian Ministry of Defense was quick to point out that the exercise was “strictly in accordance with international law,” since the…