It could hardly have been more symbolic.
Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada, a man who almost embodies the globalised order itself, having served as central bank governor of both Canada and the UK, sounded the alarm on the closing chapter of the worldโs rules-based order.
That he did so exactly a year after U.S. President Donald Trumpโs inauguration only sharpened the moment.
The speech will likely endure as a footnote marking both an ending and a beginning: the quiet close of the old order, and the uneasy opening of what comes next.
It was a rare demonstration of agency that punctured the state of denial under which most Western countries have operated over the past 12 months, as well as a moment of clarity that highlighted a potential solution to many of the problems currently facing global politics.
Carney did not lament the collapse of the โrules-basedโ world order or romanticise what was lost.
He acknowledged something far more sobering: that the old assumptions no longer work, that pretending otherwise has actually become a liability and that continuing to perform belief in a broken system is itself a risk.
For middle powers, that recognition restores agency. It creates an opportunity to turn what Carney identified as a โruptureโ into a recalibration.
Europe remains in denial
Despite this opportunity for a strategic recalibration, Europe continues to behave as if the rules-based international order merely needs defending, rather than acknowledging that it is no longer working โ let alone admit that it never truly functioned as advertised.
For decades, Europe has outsourced its national strategies to this notion of Atlanticism, taking for granted that the system would hold indefinitely even though Atlanticism was designed around the needs of Washington only.
Europe dressed up its dependence on this system as a principle.
In this context, the performance of deference and restraint became a form of virtue signalling that existed mainly to reinforce an imperfect but functional political status quo.
The arrangement worked, until Trumpism entered the political ecosystem, and suddenly the assumptions that underlied the previous system started failing.
Today, most of the threats that Europe has traditionally ascribed to China and Russia (economic coercion, weaponised interdependence, political pressure through trade, and threat to territorial integrity) are actively being posed by its closest ally.
Trump has made no attempt to hide his intent to dismantle the โliberal world orderโ and install like-minded leaders in Europe.
His administration and ideological allies have, for months, been openly backing global far right groups without pretence or denial, in addition to openly mocking European leaders for their meekness and liberal convictions.
The United States now openly uses tariffs as leverage, sanctions as discipline, financial infrastructure as coercion and market access as a political tool.
The irony is hard to miss: Europe remains paralysed by the fear of being antagonised by China or Russia, while having to put up with the same behaviours it warned against from Washington.
In his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Carney did what Europe still refuses to do: he named the reality instead of performing loyalty to a fiction.
Balanced realism, not moral performance
Nevertheless, the most important element of Carneyโs speech was not rhetorical, it was operational.
Canada is reorganising its foreign policy around what its PM has termed โvalues-based realismโ: maintaining alliances while diversifying relationships, reducing vulnerability without retreating and engaging the world as it is rather than as it is wished to be.
The recalibration of Canadaโs relationship with China is particularly instructive.
Ottawaโs ties with Beijing deteriorated sharply after Canada arrested Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in 2018, an arrest widely understood to have been carried out at Washingtonโs request, under U.S. sanctions law.
At the time, Canada paid the price: diplomatic freeze, trade retaliation and prolonged political strain that served American strategic objectives far more than Canadian interests.
Carneyโs repositioning signals a recognition that acting as an enforcement arm for U.S. geopolitical disputes carries real costs and that sovereignty requires the ability to repair, rebalance and move on.
Europe has yet to draw the same conclusion.
Values-based realism begins with reality, not ideals, allowing values to guide priorities rather than sustain illusions.
But for Europe, even this presumes a level of clarity it does not yet have: balanced realism must come firstโholding interests, limits and power in tension while shedding moral absolutism and transactional volatility.
Only then can Europe credibly speak the language of values.
Instead of balancing, Europe continues to moralise.
In a world where nearly every serious middle power is diversifying its options, European countries stand out as the only major actors still choosing sides as a matter of identity.
Why the Gulf has become the worldโs meeting ground
The Gulf states offer a useful comparison; if not as a moral model, as a strategic one.
