Carney’s Empty Words in Davos as a Cover-Up for Western Barbarism
By Ray Achison: The Canadian Prime Minister’s speech in Davos failed to mention the West’s contribution to the destruction of international law, human rights violations, and inequality
On January 20, 2026, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney declared the death of the so-called rules-based international order. In a speech praised by many, Carney urged countries to stop complying with hegemonic regimes, to stop hoping for a return to the past, and instead to build new coalitions to survive what lies ahead.
But the Prime Minister’s speech lacked an honest reflection on the contribution of Canada and other major powers (or “middle powers,” as they are now called) to the destruction of international law, human rights violations, and global inequality. These governments screwed up, and now they are realizing it. They emboldened the US to reach its current position, supporting and facilitating its rise for so long because it suited their interests. Many "middle powers" also colonized other countries, extracting wealth, resources, and labor from the Global South and overthrowing democratically elected leaders in those countries in favor of those willing to serve the imperial core.
Now, these same "middle powers" are discovering what it means to be on the other side of the equation. To be the ones threatened with economic assimilation being weaponized against them, with tariffs being imposed on them, with their governments being overthrown, and with their countries being invaded and occupied.
Recognizing their own crimes and privileges is essential if the governments of these countries want to build meaningful and lasting coalitions that truly protect people and the planet, and not just serve their own short-term interests. If the “middle powers” do not want to suffer what they have done to others, these countries must take seriously the construction of alternatives, led by the Global South and the populations that have been harmed by their
past actions.
Recognizing reality as a “radical act”
The fundamental admission in Carney’s speech, which highlights the farce of the rules-based order, is a good starting point. “We knew that the story of the rules-based international order was partly false,” he stated. “That the strongest would get away with it when it suited them. That trade rules were applied asymmetrically. And we knew that international law was applied more or less rigorously depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.”
He said that this fiction was useful (he omitted for whom, but it was useful for imperialist countries like Canada), but that it no longer works. Instead of pretending that the rules-based order works as advertised, Carney urged states to “call it what it is: a system that intensifies great power rivalry, in which the most powerful pursue their interests using economic assimilation as a weapon of coercion.”
Proclaiming that the world faces a breakdown, he noted that “great powers” are using economic assimilation as a weapon and tool of subjugation. In banking parlance, he urged countries to “diversify” their alliances, make “collective investments in resilience,” and embrace “values-based realism.” He announced that Canada would seek “different coalitions on different issues based on shared values and interests.” He specifically urged so-called middle-power countries to join, noting that “if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.” Most importantly, he said, these states must act consistently, “applying the same standards to allies and rivals.”
However important this admission and the calls for coalition building may be, beneath the rhetoric lies a call for countries to redouble their efforts regarding capitalism, resource extraction, free trade, artificial intelligence, and militarism. It is a call to strengthen neoliberalism under the pretext of combating fascism, even though these are the very options that have led to the imperialist international order that Carney claims to oppose.
Integrated Militarism
Let's start with militarism. Carney stated in Davos that he will double Canada's military spending by the end of the decade. Last year, he announced a military budget of 81.8 billion Canadian dollars (about 50.6 billion euros) for the next five years. Although he advised countries in Davos not to "build fortresses," it appears his government is investing in precisely that. Doubling the military budget is not enough to deter a US invasion; the Canadian military recently simulated a response to a US attack on Canada, predicting that US forces would crush "strategic assets" at "lightning speed." The Canadian military stated that it would have to resort to unconventional warfare inspired by the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, as well as guerrilla warfare by armed civilians. It is assumed that the fighting would last for decades.
What Carney also failed to mention in Davos is the fact that the Canadian military and intelligence services are deeply intertwined with the US. US troops are stationed in Canada at North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) bases. Canada is part of the Five Eyes alliance, an intelligence-sharing coalition comprised of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the US. Of course, there is also the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), toward which the Trump administration has been openly hostile, but which has historically complied with US directives regarding the bombing of other countries, hosting US nuclear weapons, participating in war games, escalating tensions with Russia, and spending ever-increasing amounts of taxpayer money on arms and war (all members except Spain recently agreed to spend 5% of their gross domestic product on militarism).
Like Canada, the rest of NATO has been thoroughly militarized by Washington. The US has troops stationed at at least 38 military bases across Europe. It has around 100 nuclear weapons stationed on five of its bases. This makes the European stance of not wanting to cede European territory to the US somewhat ironic, since large swathes of European land already belong to the US.
Canada and the European members of NATO also have significant investments in American arms companies. Canada hosts manufacturing plants for Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, and others. The Canadian military buys billions of dollars' worth of weapons from the US and continues to do so. Canada is a key partner in the US F-35 fighter jet program, one of the weapons systems for which Canada has been supplying parts and components to Israel for its genocide of Palestinians. The same is true for many European NATO members and other "middle powers."
Canada's Complicity and Crimes
All this entanglement leads us to the importance of recognizing the role each has played in the current situation. If Carney is serious about forging new alliances based on trust and equality, he should acknowledge that Canada, under his leadership and that of previous administrations, was not a passive observer of the rules-based order. Canada did not simply “hang a sign in the window,” as he suggests in his speech. Canada actively participated in violating international law for economic gain, applying the rules asymmetrically to benefit itself and its allies.
For example, the Canadian government helped the US invade and occupy Afghanistan; pretended not to support the invasion of Iraq, even though it actually aided and abetted it; helped stage a coup in Haiti; provided money and weapons to the neo-fascist dictatorship in Ukraine; and has helped overthrow governments and destabilize societies in Latin America in places where its companies own mines.
The erosion of international law does not stem solely from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US invasion of Venezuela, or the threats against Greenland. Canada has been a full and active partner in violating the very norms it helped establish, particularly through its continued arms shipments to Israel. Canada has been a consistent partner of Israel in its genocide of the Palestinians, in violation of the Genocide Convention, the Geneva
Conventions, the Arms Trade Treaty, and other international agreements.
The Canadian government has also violently suppressed any opposition to its complicity in the genocide. Police evicted student encampments at universities, arrested activists for criticizing the Israeli regime online, criminalized solidarity actions and marches, conducted unannounced nighttime raids on the homes of activists accused of damaging the property of complicit institutions, and predawn raids on others who allegedly organized blockades of weapons factories.
In Davos, Carney spoke grandly of Canada as “a pluralistic society that works,” where “the public square is loud, diverse, and free.” In reality, the public square is shrinking and becoming increasingly criminalized. It is not only anti-genocide activists who are threatened. The Canadian government has repeatedly deployed its most militarized police force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), to unceded Indigenous lands to violently arrest First Nations organizers and activists for protecting land, water, and forests from fossil fuel extraction. The RCMP, whose precursor was formed to commit genocide in the early days of the expanding colonial state, is now deployed by the federal government to protect the interests of fossil fuel companies.
This makes Carney’s boasts about Canada’s critical energy and mineral resources especially troubling. Canada already extracts oil from Alberta’s tar sands—the dirtiest form of oil extraction in the world—for which Carney recently granted Alberta’s far-right premier permission to build a new pipeline in what activists have called the “sale of the century” and a “shocking betrayal of federal commitments on climate change and Indigenous rights.” Canada also extracts gas and coal from British Columbia, uranium from Saskatchewan, and much more. Carney’s celebration of environmentally devastating artificial intelligence and Canada’s status as an “energy superpower” and possessor of “vast reserves of critical minerals” is a stark warning about the future he envisions for Canadians and the planet. More extraction and mining, more energy use, more human rights abuses.
Canadian companies have a terrible human rights record in mining operations around the world. And Mining Watch Canada warns that “the way the metal-intensive energy transition is proceeding is fundamentally incompatible with respect for human rights globally.” It notes that “the rush for critical minerals is rapidly encroaching on sensitive environments, encroaching on Indigenous territories without their consent, further endangering the lives of human rights and environmental defenders, and violating the basic rights to health, clean air and water, and the safety and security of local communities.”
If Carney believes that increased mining activity will save the Canadian economy, it will inevitably lead to more human rights violations, including those related to freedom of expression. In addition to the violent crackdown on First Nations organizations, the Canadian government has also deported non-citizens for their climate activism. In this respect, Canada is in the midst of a crackdown on immigration. It has deported more than 400 people a week, mostly asylum seekers and refugees. The government states that it intends to deport even more people in 2026, despite the fact that doing so costs millions of dollars. This is what has become of Canada’s pluralistic society.
Building a New World Order
All of this means that the “solutions” Carney proposes against aggressive US imperialism will continue to harm people, continue to destroy the environment and exacerbate the climate crisis, continue to maintain a rigid hierarchy in international relations that privileges some at the expense of others, and continue to violate the human rights of activists, Indigenous peoples, migrants, and others. This is not standing up to a bully; it is becoming one.
Carney is right to say that the world needs global coalitions to prevent the Trump regime from crushing all those it decides it dislikes or wants to control. Carney is also right to say that countries need to “diversify” their allies. But we must go far beyond what his capitalist and extractive imagination allows.
On the one hand, Carney imagines that the US and other so-called great powers will act on their own. But that's not the plan, according to Trump's own National Security Strategy. His regime is interested in allying itself with other authoritarian states to control "spheres of influence" and jointly rule the world. His preferred partners are mafia capitalists and despotic megalomaniacs who fear women and queer people and think the world owes them something. These partners don't even have to be all white, which is especially unbelievable when you realize that part of the reason he's tearing apart his European allies is that their countries are no longer white enough for him. His new friends just have to have enough money and be repressive enough to play the game he wants to play.
These alliances of the worst of the worst are already forming, and anyone who wants to stand up to them needs to realize this. Because this also changes Carney's apparent calculation that "middle powers" simply need to stick together or form alliances with other economically powerful fascist states like China or India. In reality, "middle powers" must overcome their prejudices, acknowledge their contribution to the destruction of international norms, rules, and laws, and form coalitions with those they have harmed in the past. This is not about colonial relationships or condescending extractive agreements, but about genuine alliances.
There is no time for more Western domination. "Middle powers" must learn from countries that have suffered oppression under tyrannical states (most of them fostered and financed by these same powers). They must discover how to establish equitable and reciprocal economic and security relationships that are not based on extraction, imperialism, militarism, and violence. Relationships that prioritize the well-being of all people, not just those in the imperial core, and that guarantee the survival and health of the planet.
If Carney is willing to admit that the rules-based order was a sham, he shouldn't try to replicate it with other Western states, but rather build genuine solidarity with the rest of the world. He must decouple Canada from the US, not only economically, but also militarily. And he must defend international law, which, as he has acknowledged, the "middle powers" have only partially upheld.
Changing the Language
He must also stop calling countries "great powers" and "middle powers." We all must. These terms grant certain governments a status they don't deserve. The US, Saudi Arabia, and other countries with which the Trump regime wants to build an alliance of autocrats are not great powers. They are heavily militarized states seeking global dominance through violence. They are thugs.
Canada, European countries, and other colonial states that claim Western status regardless of their geography, such as Australia and New Zealand, are not middle powers. These are countries that plundered and exploited the Global South to build and maintain their economies at the expense of the vast majority of people and the planet. They are not in the middle; they are at the top, and only now are they experiencing the full weight of what it means to be subordinated to a hierarchy imposed by those more violent than themselves.
Equality means getting rid of the concepts of "big" and "middle" and the idea of "power" in general, and calling things as they are. Power should not refer to economic or military force, but to what people can do together, in solidarity, to improve us all. May this rupture not be one that brings the world to its knees before the boot of violent thugs, but rather one that serves to build something that truly helps us all survive and thrive.
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