Gian Ehrenzeller / EPA
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney during his speech at Davos 2026
The Canadian Prime Minister’s speech in Davos highlights with great clarity how middle-power countries like his can prosper in this turbulent new world — in which great powers no longer pretend to follow the established rules.
“Today, I will talk about the rupture in world orderthe end of a beautiful story and the beginning of a brutal reality where geopolitics between great powers is not subject to any restrictions“.
Thus began the Mark Carney during the Davos Forum, the annual summit of the World Economic Forum, taking place this week in Switzerland.
More than a diagnosis, the remarkable speech by the Prime Minister of Canada points out with great clarity how middle power countries can thrive in this turbulent new world.
For decades, these intermediate powerslike Canada, the United Kingdom and most of Europe, have prospered on the assumption that an international order rules-basedhowever imperfect, would continue to sustain global stability.
This assumption considers Mark Carneyis no longer maintained.
In his speech, the Canadian Prime Minister rejected both nostalgia and fatalism, and described the new world in which we live, in which rivalry between great powers has returned with force, economic interdependence became a instrument of coercion and the rituals of multilateralism increasingly mask a harsher reality.
At the heart of Carney’s remarkable speech was an unavoidable challenge: we stop pretending that the old order still works and confront the world as it is, and not as many countries would like it to be.
A world order that broke down, did not evolve
Carney is unequivocal in its diagnosishighlights: the world is not going through a period of controlled transition, but experiencing a rupture.
A rules-based international order that shaped global politics for much of the postwar era did not simply fade away; lost its ability to condition behavior. The great powers are increasingly willing to circumvent, reinterpretr or ignore shared norms when they conflict with your national interest.
What makes this moment distinct, Carney argues, is the way in which the economic interdependence has been transformed. Trade, finance and supply chains were once presented as sources of mutual benefit and stability.
Today, they are routinely used as pressure instrumentspunishment and control. Tariffs, market access and financial infrastructure have become tools of coercion rather than cooperation.
For intermediate powersthis represents a fundamental shift: the assumption that openness automatically provides security and prosperity is no longer credible.
The cost of “living inside a lie”
To explain how the old order persisted for so long despite his failings, Carney turns to former Czech dissident Vaclav Havel to explain how we can “living collectively within a lie”.
In 1978, Havel wrote an essay titled “The Power of the Powerless“, in which he asked a simple question: How did the communist system sustain itself??
According to Havel, simply with the participation of ordinary people in rituals that they know how to be false, and everyone’s willingness in acting as if they were true.
The international system, says Carney, endured not because it worked as advertised, but because countries continued to act as if it worked. The governments praised rules that they knew were applied unevenlydefended institutions that they knew were weakening and avoided reporting inconsistencies to preserve short-term stability.
This collective representation came at a price. By tolerating double criteria and selective application, the intermediate powers helped to sustain an illusion which ended up empty the legitimacy.
Now that the Great powers abandon even the appearance of containmentcontinue to comply, remain silent, or apply principles inconsistently already does not guarantee protection. On the contrary, deepens vulnerability.
For Carney, honesty — naming reality as it is — becomes the first act of strategic self-defense.
Why retreating behind national walls is not the answer
As confidence in global rules erodes, many countries are looking to strategic autonomy in energy, food, defense and critical supply chains.
Carney treats this instinct with understanding.the. A country that cannot feed itself, supply itself with energy or defend itself has few options when under pressure. In a world where economic integration can be weaponized, reducing exposure is a rational response.
But Carney is clear about the risks. Autonomy pursued in isolation leads to a world of national fortresses: fragmented, inefficient and, ultimately, poorer.
Every country trying to duplicate supply chainsaccumulating resources and isolating oneself from shocks increases costs and decreases resilience. The result would be a global system more fragile, not more secure.
Carney’s argument is that resilience doesn’t have to mean retreat; can be constructed through shared investmentcommon standards and coordinated diversification between trusted partners.
A central theme of the Canadian Prime Minister’s speech in Davos was the clear distinction between great powers and those who are caught in the middle. The great powers, for now, maintain market sizemilitary capacity and influence to dictate conditions. Intermediate powers, according to Carney, do not.
Carney is blunt about the consequences. This is not genuine sovereigntyhe argues, but your performance — the appearance of autonomy while accepting subordination.
The alternative is collective actionsays the Canadian government official.
To the coordinate its policies, investments and standardsintermediate powers could potentially concentrate influence, share risks and create a third path between submission and isolation.
Acting togethermiddle powers are more likely to shape rules rather than just absorb the consequences of power politics.
Canada’s response: honesty, strength and unity
Canada’s strategy, as outlined by Carney, is based on what he calls “value-based realism“.
This means stand firm on fundamental principles — sovereignty, territorial integrity, human rights and the prohibition of the use of force — while acting pragmatically in a world of divergent interests. It is an approach that rejects both the grandiloquent moral stance like silent acquiescence.
In practice, it implies build strength internally through economic reform, significant investment in energy, technology and defense, and the removal of domestic barriers to growth.
Not external, means diversifying partnerships and form flexible, issue-specific coalitions—on trade, critical minerals, Arctic security, and artificial intelligence—rather than relying exclusively on universal institutions that no longer work as intended.
Carney’s central argument suggests that middle powers earn the right to a principled foreign policy by reducing their vulnerability to retaliation and by acting together rather than in isolation.
As a ZAP reader wrote in a comment this Thursday, there is a before and after Mark Carney’s speech.
