https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mark-carney-speech-davos-rules-based-order-9.7053350
Some quotes:
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 varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.
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 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.
I can understand the downvotes. It’s going to be a hard pill to swallow that the “rules based liberalism” after the cold war was just “soft”, imperialism all along. (People in Iraq might not see it as soft.) It’s going to be an even harder pill to swallow to accept that now Canada and Europe are going to be in the butt end of that imperialism. It’s going to hurt a lot of first world egos that it came back and bit the on the ass; But hey one stage of grief at a time; The poorest living in Canada and Europe have been there for some years now.
Oooh, I appreciate your posts! And yes, you’re right, it is understandable. I don’t like it, but deprogramming isn’t easy nor painless.