It’s amusing watching the vassals adjust to the new imperial reality under king Trump.

Mark Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum was a masterclass in “limited hangout”, where he acknowledged that the “rules based international order” was always conditional and ultimately based on the whims of the hegemon.

“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. We could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.

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 that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.

This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods: open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.

So, we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals. And largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality.

This bargain no longer works.

Let me be direct: we are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.”

Carney, for his efforts, received a standing ovation.

The concept of the rules based order, a lie in itself, was useful for the proxy forces and vassals of the global hegemon as long as they themselves were not threatened by its consequences. But now that the US has turned on the vassals who supported it, it’s time to allow some honesty.

Less amusing and more cringing was French Prime Minister Macron’s appeal to Trump, where he’s fine with the US attacking Iran and Syria, and massive support for Israel’s Gaza genocide, but that an attack on Greenland and Denmark is going to far. In his message to Trump, Macron told him “we are totally in line on Syria” and “can do great things on Iran” but that he “doesn’t understand what you are doing on Greenland.”

The hypocrisy is stunning. The vassals have been loyal subordinates as the empire has laid waste to the Third World, but now that they are on the menu it’s a different story.

But it’s nothing new. Empire’s in their terminal stage contract and the periphery is sacrificed for the empire core.

In all seriousness, the correct approach is for Europe and Canada to break from the US and reclaim their agency.

Update: Nate Bear’s: The Monstrous Confessions Of Mark Carney— expertly exposes the hypocrisy of Carney’s speech and his reception.

“Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney got up on stage in Davos and admitted the liberal world has been complicit in the breakdown of international law, war crimes and mass atrocities, but that the west was happy to go along with it while the brutality of empire benefitted them. 

His speech was showered with praise by the liberal establishment and legacy media who in Carney have found themselves a new hero to make sense of the world.

The elites in the hall gave it a standing ovation. Many outlets including The New York Times and The Guardian, which called it “unflinching realism,” reprinted it in full. The Financial Times labelled it “timely and bold” and said it demonstrated “real leadership.” 

And it is worth reading.

But not for the reasons the liberal intelligentsia is crowing about.

Carney’s speech is worth reading for its confessions. For its confession that liberal centrism is an ideology of cynical self-interest, that its symbols are fake, its rhetoric designed to deceive. For its admission that the rules-based order is a lie, that western neoliberal governance is a hideous, hypocritical creation.”