By – Inika Gupta

Abstract

This article re-evaluates sovereignty through Deleuzian masochism, framing international law as a contractual performance between states. Analysing the 2026 US-Iran-Israel conflict, it argues that hegemonic sadism undermines global stability, forcing neutral nations like India to bear disproportionate economic costs and exposing the urgent need for a differentiated, interdependent governance model.

Introduction

Sovereignty is commonly understood as the supreme and exclusive authority a state exercises over its territory and people. This concept has been codified across centuries of international law, most prominently in the United Nations Charter. Yet sovereignty is not a static legal fact, it is rather a continuously contested performance. The sadistic sovereign commands, the masochistic subject consents, and international institutions such as the UN attempt to hold this fragile theatre together. 

The stability of the sadistic sovereign, however, rests not on its own force alone, but on the reciprocal, contractual submission of the subject. This is best understood through the dynamic of the masochist subject, a figure who, following Deleuze’s analysis, subverts authority by scripting their own submission.  Masochism, in this sense, is not passive victimization, but a creative act of resistance. By consenting to the sovereign’s power through what we call the masochistic contract, the subject effectively acknowledges the command while simultaneously undermining its claim to monologic absoluteness. 

Nowhere in recent history has this tension been exposed more violently than in the ongoing military conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran that began on 28 February 2026. The US-Israeli strikes on Iran, codenamed “Operation Epic Fury,” and the subsequent retaliation by Iran across the Gulf region, is a live and alarming case study where powerful states abandon the masochistic contract of international law altogether. The sovereign’s claimed supremacy is only ever as stable as the institutional architecture that surrounds it, and that when that architecture fails, the costs fall hardest on those who never wielded command in the first place.

The Sadist’s Command in US-Israeli Strikes and the Problem of Legality

The classical legal framework governing the use of force between states is found in Articles 2(4) and 51 of the UN Charter, and neither of these conditions were met. Article 2(4) prohibits the threat or use of force against other states, while Article 51 preserves the inherent right to individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs. The sadist logic of hegemonic power is the assertion of supreme authority not through universally accepted rules, but through the unilateral ability to decide on the exception. The sovereign, in Carl Schmitt’s formulation, is precisely the one who decides when the normal order is suspended. The United States, as the preponderant military and economic power, effectively exercised this prerogative, choosing war while diplomatic channels remained open, and doing so without Security Council authorisation. The House of Commons Library’s briefing on the conflict notes that the US justified its action by invoking the right to self-defence “until the UN Security Council takes action,” a framing that assumes an ongoing armed attack that the evidence does not clearly support.

The Masochistic Contract When Institutional Submission Loses Its Meaning

The UN, as a framework for managing international anarchy, was designed to function as the site of the global masochistic contract, where states voluntarily cede some autonomy to a collective institution in exchange for protection from the greater suffering of unrestrained interstate violence. But this contract has always been conditional and scripted, particularly for states that hold permanent seats on the Security Council.

The paralysis of the UN Security Council in the face of this conflict exposes the fundamental flaw in the global masochistic contract. The sadist’s refusal to be bound. As international bodies struggle to condemn actions shielded by the U.S. veto, the Uniting for Peace procedure offers only non-binding moral appeals, a performative resistance that lacks the universal enforcement mechanisms necessary to restrain hegemonic sadism. 

In effect, this is a selective application of sovereignty norms, where hegemonic states invoke the sanctity of borders only when their own interests are threatened. While retaliatory strikes are condemned as violations of regional sovereignty, the prior violations of Article 2(4) by powerful actors are often ignored, where sovereign equality remains illusory for the less powerful. Sovereignty is a perpetually contested and confusing metaphor. It is not an absolute rule, but a negotiation of meaning where the sovereign’s authority remains precariously dependent on the very recognition and paradoxical power of acknowledgment provided by the subjects it seeks to govern.

The Economic Anatomy of Broken Sovereignty

Countries who were not involved in starting the war have been affected economically. Understanding sovereignty as an economic concept with distributional implications rather than just a political one depends on this asymmetry.

India depends on the Gulf for more than 80% of its imports of crude oil, more than 40% of which pass through the Strait of Hormuz, demonstrating how closely the Gulf’s geopolitical environment affects India’s economic stability. This energy security is directly threatened by the ongoing conflict; according to the Ministry of Finance, a sustained 10% increase in oil prices may raise inflation by 30 basis points and greatly exacerbate the current account deficit. Sharp spikes in LPG prices, the rerouting of industrial fuel to homes, and the stoppage of agricultural exports like rice and tea due to skyrocketing insurance risks are just a few examples of how this instability has already affected day-to-day living.

Additionally, the $50 billion yearly remittance flow that supports rural consumption is at risk due to the possible displacement of 9 million Indian nationals in the Gulf. Iran has successfully internationalised the costs of war by attacking international shipping and energy infrastructure, making neutral countries like India shoulder the financial price of a confrontation brought on by unequal power relations and military escalations.

Differentiated Sovereignty and Global Justice

This crisis reveals and shows us about the failings of a traditional conception of monolithic state sovereignty and calls instead for a framework of differentiated sovereignty that takes global interdependence into account. India is trying to pursue a policy of multi-alignment whereby it balances strategic ties with Israel against the need for energy waivers. smaller economies, however, remain even more vulnerable to growth shocks that they did not cause. These include Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Philippines.

The official sovereign equality guaranteed by the UN Charter gives little protection to these countries from the violence of economic decisions taken in the centres of big powers. Major world powers, on the other hand, argue that existing international law does not apply to the issues of AI-driven weapons and mechanisms.  As a result, the realities of war necessitate consideration of global governance that transcends the fiction of equal sovereignty. It is necessary to develop new architecture that imposes proportionate obligations on states which create global crises. It should create enforcement mechanisms for genuine protection of the economically exposed countries when geopolitically crisis unfolds.

Conclusion

The war in Iran, Israel and the USA in 2026 is among many things a stress test. It has shown that the UN’s institutional framework, meant to convert the anarchic impulses of sovereign states into procedural cooperation, can be bypassed if powerful states choose to act outside it. The language of sovereignty clearly has a selective application so as to protect those who can deploy military force to make it stick and offer little comfort to those who cannot.  As a result, economic consequences from illegal and contested military action will disproportionately fall on economies that were never consulted, never consented and never commanded.

The right to command was never the only aspect of sovereignty, when it was properly understood. It has always been about the interaction between command and consent, between the legitimacy-claiming authority and the subjects, who decide whether that legitimacy is upheld by their acceptance or rejection. That multilateral negotiation has collapsed in the current crisis. The task for international law, economics, and political theory is not to mourn this breakdown but to rebuild the institutional architecture that can make shared sovereignty meaningful rather than illusory with participatory parity, especially for the billions of people who live outside the reach of command but within the full force of its consequences.

About the Author

Inika Gupta is a third-year B. Com LL.B. (Hons.) student at Jindal Global Law School, and a research analyst at the Economics and Finance Cluster of Nickeled & Dimed. She is passionate about critically examining emerging legal and economic policy trends through rigorous, data-backed analysis. 

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