On January 20, just one year after Donald Trump took office, ushering in a new era of chaos and global instability, the Canadian Prime Minister took the floor at the Davos Forum. Mark Carney, a central banker turned politician by circumstances and a leader to a large extent due to his stance against the Trumpist challenge, made a plea, a call, and outlined a roadmap for "medium powers" to come together to save a system in decay.
"Today I will talk about the breakdown of the world order, the end of a beautiful story, and the beginning of a brutal reality where geopolitics among major powers is not subject to any restraint," he began his speech, one of the most commented and quoted in the history of the World Economic Forum. "For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, praised its principles, and benefited from its predictability. Thanks to this, we could pursue foreign policies based on values under its protection. We knew that the history of the rules-based international order was partially false: that the most powerful exempted themselves when it suited them, that trade rules were applied asymmetrically, and that international law was applied with different rigor depending on the identity of the accused or the victim. But this fiction was useful. And American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods: open sea routes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for dispute resolution. So, we went with the flow, participated in the rituals, and, in general, avoided pointing out the discrepancies between rhetoric and reality. This agreement no longer works. Let me be direct: we are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition," he stated.
The emergence of the Canadian liberal politician in the debate came at the right moment, with Trump imposing the most protectionist wall in a century, threatening to annex Greenland, to break up NATO, and even to incorporate his northern neighbor into the United States. His speech, a breath of fresh air in the midst of a crisis of confidence and desperation, focused on defending an idea, appealing to values and principles but from a realist worldview, calling things by their name and sounding the alarms, but without falling into despair. "The question for medium powers, like Canada, is not whether we should adapt to the new reality - we must do so - but whether we adapt simply by building higher walls or if we can undertake something more ambitious (...) Our new approach is based on what Alexander Stubb has termed 'value-based realism'; or, in other words, we aspire to be pragmatic and act with principles," he said, quoting the Finnish president.
Almost simultaneously, the Finnish president, the aforementioned Stubb (who has achieved an unexpected connection with Trump, thanks in part to his golfing skills), published a very influential article on the same issue and from an almost identical perspective in Foreign Affairs. "The world has changed more in the last four years than in the previous 30. While conflicts intensify, democracies, apparently, are crumbling. The post-Cold War era is over. Despite the hopes that arose after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world did not come together to embrace democracy and market capitalism. In fact, the forces that were supposed to unite the world - trade, energy, technology, and information - are now fragmenting it. We live in a new world of disorder. The liberal order based on rules that emerged after the end of World War II is dying. Multilateral cooperation is giving way to multipolar competition. Opportunistic transactions seem to matter more than defending international norms. Competition between major powers has returned, and the rivalry between China and the United States sets the course of geopolitics. But it is not the only force shaping the global order. Emerging medium powers, such as Brazil, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Turkey, have become key players," he wrote.
There are several problems with the illusion of a league of medium powers capable of building an alternative reality, starting with the difficulty of even defining the category and because maintaining liberal and democratic values while approaching China, for the most obvious example, is impossible and implies concessions that are hard to digest. Stubb warned in his text that the next five or ten years will likely determine the world order for the coming decades, because history shows that once an order is established, it tends to endure." For him, we are facing the last opportunity for Western countries to convince the rest of the world that they are capable of dialogue instead of monologue, of being consistent instead of applying a double standard, and of cooperating instead of dominating. "If countries give up cooperation in favor of competition, a world of even greater conflicts is looming," he said, insisting that amid devastation, the international order is transitioning from multilateralism to multipolarity. And while the former is a system of global cooperation based on international institutions and common norms, the latter is an oligopoly of power that pushes towards "disorder and conflict."
The concept of medium powers is by no means new. In International Relations classes, the 16th-century diplomat and scholar Giovanni Botero is remembered, who spoke of a series of states (menzani) located between the great (grandissime) and the small (piccioli), each of which had "sufficient strength and authority to stand on its own without external help." After World War II, a series of Australian and Canadian diplomats and academics brought it back into fashion. And now, once again.
"Medium powers are living their moment of glory. Not a week goes by in the political world without a conference, a speech, or an article celebrating the role that second-tier powers, but of systemic importance, could play in improving international cooperation. And rightly so. Multilateralism is in crisis. The United Nations and other traditional organizations seem to be fatally blocked, the United States has abdicated its traditional leadership role, and China is not ready, and possibly not suitable, to assume global leadership. The rules-based international order, which had long been weakened, is dead and buried, but it is not clear what will exactly succeed it," wonders Stewart Patrick, from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank.
The answer is by no means simple. "Medium powers must act together, because if we do not participate in negotiations, we become easy prey. The major powers can, for now, act on their own. They have the market size, military capacity, and influence to impose their conditions. Medium powers do not. However, when we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemonic power, we negotiate from a position of weakness. We accept what is offered to us. We compete among ourselves to be the most accommodating. This is not sovereignty. It is the simulation of sovereignty by accepting subordination," Carney said in Davos.
The theory is fine, but the practice is very complicated, full of pitfalls, and can contribute to dismantling what remains of the rules-based international order, even while trying to support it. These days, Pedro Sánchez has returned to China, where he has said, among other things, that the West must voluntarily cede power. The Spanish president, who has also organized a forum of progressive leaders, proposes a path similar to that of Canada or Finland, but with a more aggressive and ideological rhetoric, more distant from the US, closer to China, and with a clear interest in leading other medium powers. A risky bet pushing the boundaries.
"Middle powers have little to do with size, something to do with capabilities and economies, and absolutely nothing to do with moral values," emphasizes Manjari Chatterjee Miller, professor of International Relations at the University of Toronto. "The reality is that middle powers helped build the current international order, and if they stop supporting it, that order will erode. Middle powers that set aside their bilateral and trilateral differences to cooperate could constitute a powerful force and cause the order to fragment. However, by forming coalitions of small groups, they risk creating opposing orders. And those orders could fragment in many aspects, from trade to security and the environment," the professor insists.
In the mid-20th century, at the height of the Cold War, many countries defined themselves as non-aligned to avoid falling into the orbit of Washington or Moscow. This is something else entirely. "Today, the term Non-Aligned Movement doesn't do justice to these middle powers. While their desire to distance themselves from the great powers is well known, their undeniable influence on the international order demands a new approach and definition. Middle powers aspire to influence global affairs, especially when they perceive that the great powers are relinquishing their role, and in some cases, they have the capacity to do so," explains Meghan L. O'Sullivan, director of Harvard's Belfer Center and one of the leaders of the Middle Powers Project.
"We need to be realistic. To begin with, while a multipolar world is inevitable, it is still in its infancy. For now, the structure of international politics remains bipolar, dominated by two superpowers. Both could try to curb the activism of middle powers and limit multilateral initiatives, even as the latter attempt to keep these two giants in check. Second, today's middle powers are a heterogeneous group, and their specific interests, conflicting values, and differing worldviews will often limit their solidarity and enthusiasm for joint projects. Rather than anticipating a united and coherent front, we should expect a shifting set of multilateral initiatives as subgroups of middle powers join (or withdraw from) specific projects. Finally, we should avoid idealizing middle powers. Not all of them are admirable, much less prepared to contribute to international cooperation. And even those that support multilateralism do so not out of altruism, but out of self-interest, albeit enlightened self-interest," Patrick insists.
In recent months, we have seen many developments. The EU and India are signing "the mother of all agreements." European leaders are making pilgrimages to Beijing one after another. Canada has signed a comprehensive strategic alliance with the EU, which includes joining SAFE, the European defense procurement mechanism. In addition, it has "strategic alliances" with China and Qatar and is negotiating free trade agreements with India, ASEAN, Thailand, the Philippines, and Mercosur. "To contribute to solving global problems, we are promoting variable geometry; that is, different coalitions for different problems, based on common values and interests," says Carney, who on Friday also announced an investors' summit in September to try to attract one trillion Canadian dollars and reduce economic dependence on the US.
But variable geometry is one thing when it's attempted with the Scandinavian countries in the Arctic or with Australia in the Pacific, and quite another when it's with China, India, or Türkiye. "Carney's argument rests on the assumption that middle powers form a group capable of sustained collective action. This is not the case. For starters, there is no fixed definition of what constitutes a middle power. And even those that group together informally do not share a common vision of the problem they face. Some rely heavily on alliances. Others are very cautious about them. Some prioritize security, while others focus more on economic stability or development. If you lump them together under the same label, they appear to be a group. But on closer inspection, the differences are hard to ignore," notes Sanchari Ghosh of the Lowy Institute, Australia's leading think tank.
"The consequences of the 'Carney doctrine' regarding the strength of coalitions, if it were to fully materialize, would be far-reaching. Middle powers lack the capacity to create a global international order. It is unlikely that they will collaborate with China to create a new stable order. Nor can they prop up the current order without U.S. support, nor might some of them even wish to do so anymore. But they do have the capacity to create smaller rival orders. And in doing so, they will write the final epitaph for the liberal international order," concludes Professor Chatterjee Miller.