By Denko Maleski
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney received a standing ovation from the audience at the end of his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos. That rarely happens. In a speech widely described as the best of his career, Carney concluded that the global order as we have known it has ended and will not return. This is not about its transformation, he stressed, but about a rupture.
He was, of course, referring to the rule-based order, the system led by the United States, which no longer exists. In that order, economic relations are used as weapons rather than as instruments of mutual benefit. Like a boxer competing in his own weight class, Carney described his country, Canada, as a “middle power” and called on other “middle powers,” such as India, for example, to unite. He urged them to build a new framework of cooperation based on shared values such as human rights, sovereignty, and solidarity. If the “middle powers” fail to do this, Carney warned, “we will not be at the table where decisions are made, but on the menu.” To avoid falling into isolation, “middle powers” must fight for strategic autonomy grounded in principles and pragmatism.
In short, “middle powers” like Canada should not be nostalgic for the old system and should enter pragmatic alliances and partnerships in order to build strategic autonomy vis-à-vis the great powers.
Immediately exposed to criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump, Prime Minister Carney’s speech, I am convinced, is the product of a deeply thought-out effort by his speechwriters, who are in communication with Canada’s strategic research centers. And naturally, my thoughts turn to the representatives of our own country. Our country belongs to a different category than Canada. We are not a “middle power” but fall into the category of small states—states whose task in the world order of states is the hardest of all: to survive, to endure. What will Prime Minister Mickoski say in Davos? If he were to follow Carney’s example, he should speak about small states in the new world order. Unfortunately, he cannot produce such a synthesis because, in this entire small country, there is no one capable of doing so, nor are his speechwriters trained for it. Strategic research centers and university departments of international law and politics produce nothing. For decades the situation has been the same, and now, when we need minds to show us the way forward, there are no minds—because no one wants to think. This is not how a state is preserved. Those who should be thinking and researching exist only for their own careers and titles. Never before have I been as worried about the future of our state as I am today. Today, our politicians do not even know which path to take. Like some kind of magicians, they repeat that we are both with America and with Europe.
The president does not abandon her normative narrative for a sphere that cannot be understood through law, and in the harsh world of international politics she asks others to take care of small states, as in the past. But what if that “past,” as Carney says, is never coming back? The prime minister seems stuck at the level of a flawed analysis he presented on the day of President Trump’s inauguration, announcing (with satisfaction?!) the “new normal” and our state “in the front rows.” In the front rows with carnivores? Namely, we cannot rejoice in that “new,” because the new is a world of carnivores, while we belong to the category of herbivores. What is worrying is that the statements of both the prime minister and the president on foreign policy are the same improvisation that has followed us since independence. While that may have been understandable in the early years of statehood, today, after 35 years, it is not only unacceptable but also dangerous for the survival of the state.