Russia's war against Ukraine has sent shockwaves through the international order. Politicians across the globe have declared that the world we once knew no longer exists.
Leaders in the West have begun searching for new ways to understand the rupture. Germany's Olaf Scholz coined "Zeitenwende"—a historic turning point—which became Germany's word of the year. President Frank-Walter Steinmeier announced a new era in relations with Russia. UK Defense Secretary John Healey declared the end of the "peace dividend" era.
At Davos on 21 January 2025, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney took it further. As Russia's war approaches its fifth year, he named a second wrecking ball: America—once the guarantor of world order—has become a force of destabilization. As events have shown, Washington is increasingly in cahoots with Putin and has gone so far as to lay claim to Greenland.
With the old order's enforcer turning against it, what are the remaining democratic countries to do? Carney offers an answer. Name reality for what it is. Stop pretending the rules-based order still functions. And build a coalition of nations willing to act—rather than wait for a world that isn't coming back.
The transcript below has been abridged to focus on Carney's analysis of great power rivalry, the collapse of the rules-based international order, and other elements relevant to Ukraine and its allies. The full transcript is available via Global News.
An Abridgement of Carney's Speech
"The strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must."
It seems that every day we're reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry — that the rules-based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.
And this aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable, as the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself. And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along, get along to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety.
Well, it won't. So what are our options?
The greengrocer's sign
In 1978, the Czech dissident Václav Havel, later president, wrote an essay called "The Power of the Powerless," and in it he asked a simple question: how did the communist system sustain itself?
And his answer began with a greengrocer.
Every morning, the shopkeeper places a sign in his window: "Workers of the world unite." He doesn't believe in it. No one does. But he places the sign anyway to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists — not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false.
Havel called this living within a lie. The system's power comes not from its truth, but from everyone's willingness to perform as if it were true. And its fragility comes from the same source. When even one person stops performing, when the greengrocer removes his sign, the illusion begins to crack.
Friends, it is time for companies and countries to take their signs down.
We all placed the sign in the window
For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, we praised its principles, we benefited from its predictability. And because of that, we could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.
We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false, that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically, and we knew that international law applied with varied rigor, depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.
This fiction was useful, and American hegemony in particular helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.
So we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals, and we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality.
This bargain no longer works.
Rupture, not transition
Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.
Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration. But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.
You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination.
A world of fortresses is no world at all
The multilateral institutions on which the middle powers have relied — the WTO, the UN, the COP, the very architecture of collective problem solving — are under threat. As a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions that they must develop greater strategic autonomy in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance and supply chains. And this impulse is understandable.
A country that cannot feed itself, fuel itself, or defend itself has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself.
But let's be clear-eyed about where this leads. A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile, and less sustainable.
And there's another truth: if great powers abandon even the pretense of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from transactionalism will become harder to replicate.
Hegemons cannot continually monetize their relationships. Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty. They'll buy insurance, increase options in order to rebuild sovereignty, sovereignty that was once grounded in rules but will increasingly be anchored in the ability to withstand pressure [...]
The question for middle powers like Canada is not whether to adapt to the new reality — we must.
The question is whether we adapt by simply building higher walls, or whether we can do something more ambitious.
Strength is taking the world as it is — not waiting for the world we want.
Trending Now
Our new approach rests on what Alexander Stubb, the president of Finland, has termed value-based realism.
Or, to put it another way, we aim to be both principled and pragmatic. Principled in our commitment to fundamental values, sovereignty, territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force except when consistent with the UN Charter and respect for human rights.
Or, to put it another way, we aim to be both principled and pragmatic. Principled in our commitment to fundamental values, sovereignty, territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force except when consistent with the UN Charter and respect for human rights.
And pragmatic in recognizing that progress is often incremental, that interests diverge, that not every partner will share all of our values.
So we're engaging broadly, strategically, with open eyes. We actively take on the world as it is, not wait around for a world we wish to be [...]
And we are no longer just relying on the strength of our values, but also the value of our strength.
Canada stands with Ukraine and Greenland
On Ukraine, we're a core member of the Coalition of the Willing and one of the largest per capita contributors to its defence and security.
On Arctic sovereignty, we stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark and fully support their unique right to determine Greenland's future [...]
Canada strongly opposes tariffs over Greenland and calls for focused talks to achieve our shared objectives of security and prosperity in the Arctic.
The table or the menu: what middle powers need to do
Our view is the middle powers must act together because if we're not at the table, we're on the menu.
But I'd also say that great powers can afford, for now, to go it alone. They have the market size, the military capacity, and the leverage to dictate terms. Middle powers do not. But when we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness. We accept what's offered. We compete with each other to be the most accommodating.
This is not sovereignty. It's the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination.
In a world of great power rivalry, the countries in-between have a choice: compete with each other for favour, or combine to create a third path with impact. We shouldn't allow the rise of hard power to blind us to the fact that the power of legitimacy, integrity, and rules will remain strong if we choose to wield it together.
Reality in the post-American world order
Which brings me back to Havel. What does it mean for middle powers to live the truth?
First, it means naming reality. Stop invoking rules-based international order as though it still functions as advertised. Call it what it is: a system of intensifying great power rivalry where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as coercion.
It means acting consistently, applying the same standards to allies and rivals. When middle powers criticize economic intimidation from one direction but stay silent when it comes from another, we are keeping the sign in the window.
It means building what we claim to believe in, rather than waiting for the old order to be restored. It means creating institutions and agreements that function as described, and it means reducing the leverage that enables coercion [...]
And diversification internationally is not just economic prudence; it's a material foundation for honest foreign policy, because countries earn the right to principled stands by reducing their vulnerability to retaliation.
Overcoming nostalgia
We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn't mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy, but we believe that from the fracture we can build something bigger, better, stronger, more just. This is the task of the middle powers, the countries that have the most to lose from a world of fortresses and the most to gain from genuine cooperation.
The powerful have their power. But we have something too: the capacity to stop pretending, to name realities, to build our strength at home, and to act together.
That is Canada's path. We choose it openly and confidently, and it is a path wide open to any country willing to take it with us.
Editor's note. The opinions expressed in our Opinion section belong to their authors. Euromaidan Press' editorial team may or may not share them.
Submit an opinion to Euromaidan Press
