On the other hand, international law only influences where the geopolitical setting allows it to. When it comes to the question of life and death for a superpower, international law no longer needs to mean anything.

I can observe an analogy of this for an individual person in a situation that he feels is life-threatening: criminal law or civil law are not the first things that come to mind but survival is. Only the one who first survives has a chance to return to law when things are settled back enough.