Canada Goes Forth
Mark Carney's Davos speech and the end of the world.
This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. - Mark Carney
Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada, gave a speech today at Davos, the annual world economic forum. The speech was bold, sharp and pointed in its criticism and acknowledgement of the rapid change undergone in just the last year. “Let me be direct. We are in the middle of a rupture, not a realignment” he says. The rules based international order, for all its flaws, has lead to peace, stability, and prosperity for the world. This order is now over.
It is rare to live through a period of rapid, global change. It certainly happens more frequently since the industrial revolution than it had previously in history; someone’s life at the founding of the United States would be completely recognizable to someone living in 1300. Sure, some things would be slightly updated or higher quality but the rhythm of life would be the same. The jump cut of the industrial revolution to a completely different world was the most radical change humans have ever experienced. Compared to that scope, today’s change is relatively small.
But that undersells what is happening and why this Carney speech feels like a demarcation of the changes to the global order. The rules based system, centered around the UN and generally a US led financial system, is functionally dead. Whether you agreed with Trump’s action in Venezuela or not, that was the death blow to the UN and to international order. Something new will arise to take it’s place, but that new thing will quite likely be worse. At least for the United States. It may be better for China, India, and Africa. But it could also be worse for them.
The world prior to 1945 was, frankly, most often horrible. Wars were frequent, and civilians were killed by the millions. Famine was a constant. Resources were horded so that some could live in luxury while millions starved. That is the world Trump is trying to recreate with his frankly mad destruction of international institutions. He must have had someone tell him about the old Sphere of Influence idea, and decided he liked it and wanted to pursue it. Either that or he has played Paradox grand strategy games. Maybe someone in his cabinet or on his staff has. Stephen Miller looks like a guy who’d be very into leading Germany to victory in Hearts of Iron IV. Or declaring Deus Vault in Crusader Kings.
The world is not a video game, and you can not use force and bluster to easily map paint, even if you are the biggest and strongest. And Carney can see that. He clearly sees the issues with this change, and is proposing a new way forward for middle powers. It may end up being the most important speech a Canadian has ever given. The new reality Carney lays out, coalition building around institutions, pragmatic economics, and disentangling nations from the global hegemon (clearly the USA), is a realpolitik call for a new world. And he’s not wrong. The US has completely destroyed the world faith in it, in the system it created, and in the future it promises.
I have never before so wished I was rather a Canadian than a US Citizen. This speech feels like the thing that historians will point to when saying, there was a Before, and there was an After. I am simultaneously very glad I am alive to see it and also very afraid of what this future world looks like for the country I live in. Godspeed to us all.
Mark Carney just stood on the Davos stage and said the quiet part out loud: the US‑led “rules‑based order” is over, the old system is not coming back, and middle powers either get a seat at the table or end up on the menu. That is polite diplomatic language for “the world you thought you lived in is already gone.”
This isn’t a panel soundbite; it’s a doctrine moment in open view, confirming what many suspected but few in power were willing to say on record: great powers are now using economic integration as a weapon, multilateral institutions are hollowed out, and middle powers must quietly re‑arm, re‑wire their economies, and form new coalitions just to avoid being eaten alive.
The new piece on Geopolitics in Plain Sight takes this Carney shockwave and connects it to what almost nobody is spelling out: how this “rules‑based order is dead” admission locks in a new era of great‑power espionage, energy blackmail, financial coercion and narrative warfare—and how countries like India, Canada and others are already repositioning themselves in that shadow system while most people are still arguing over headlines.
If this Davos moment makes you feel like the real map of power just flipped and nobody sent you the memo, that’s exactly who this work is for. Read it now. Subscribe. In a world where the illusion of rules is gone, understanding the hidden rules that replace them stops being “interesting” and starts being survival.
🔗 https://open.substack.com/pub/geopoliticsinplainsight/p/the-raw-files-indian-intelligence?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web