This January’s World Economic Forum at Davos stood out for two remarkable speeches by two of the world leaders – the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and the Finnish President Alex Stubb, both recognising the changing world order and what should be done about it. This was even before the Iranian war began. Since then, both of them have extended their view-points – Carney during his visit to Australia and Stubb at this year’s Raisina dialogue in Delhi. Nathan Gardels at Noema brings out the key points cohesively in this piece.
He begins with the opposite viewpoint, one of hard power realism:
“Hard-power realism is the mindset of the Great Power rulers. The actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S President Donald Trump merely confirm Chinese President Xi Jinping’s like-minded inclination, long ago voiced by Mao: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
In this perspective, only deluded soft-minded liberals don’t get that this is how the world works. As top Trump aide Stephen Miller recently put it: “We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.”
When hard power matters most, the robust build-up of military and technological capacities takes on a symbiotic reciprocity vis-à-vis rivals driven by the fear of losing advantage. Each is compelled to follow the Golden Rule in reverse: Be prepared to do unto others what you suspect they might do unto you.
The quest for AI dominance between China and the U.S. follows this logic.”
He then introduces the Middle Power Multilateralism that Carney and Stubb talk about:
“The alternative take is that the defection of the Great Powers from a global rules-based order that protected the interests of smaller nations is a historic “rupture” that puts the security and prosperity of these smaller nations at risk. Only the self-construction of middle power multilateralism — which would include Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia as well as “global South” nations such as India and Brazil, among others — can provide a counterweight for those who must make their way between what Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney calls the “hyper-scalers and hegemons.””
He quotes from Carney’s speech in Australia:
““Canada is choosing to create a dense web of connections to build our resilience…We’ve adopted a new framework for engaging the world — variable geometry — creating different coalitions for different issues based on common values and interests for those issues.
This is not a retreat from multilateralism. It is its evolution. And to be clear, Canada’s support for the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions, the multilateral system is unwavering. But while we are committed to reforms of these institutions in order to better reflect today’s world, we need coalitions now to address immediate challenges. And as those coalitions work, they will help demonstrate the power of multilateralism and reinvigorate it.
The fact is, right now, many countries are concluding that they must develop greater strategic autonomy. And this impulse is understandable. When the rules no longer protect you, you must defend yourself. A country that can’t feed itself, fuel itself or defend itself has few options.”
The latter is not viable as: “Sovereignty in the 21st century, Carney observed, requires “reliable access to space-based communications and storage, vaccines, semiconductors, payment systems and capital.
“Because governments and businesses went for decades prioritizing efficiency over resilience, we’ve developed supply chains and trading relationships that create dependencies on the great powers, sometimes even individual corporations, all of these affecting essential elements of our sovereignty. And as that integration is weaponized, this creates fundamental vulnerabilities.
“In response, Canada’s strategic imperative is to build sovereign capabilities in these critical sectors — at home and in coalition with trusted, reliable partners — to ensure that integration is never again the source of our subordination.”
He goes on to quote Carney on how Canada and Australia can leverage their strengths in mineral resources and pension funds and collaborate with middle powers such as Europe, Japan and India on technology.
He then moves to Stubb’s speech in Delhi which included PM Modi in the audience:
““I believe that the Global South will decide what the next world order will look like,” he declared flat out. “And India, as a major power, will be a major — if not the — force in deciding whether the world will tilt toward conflictual multipolarity characterized by deals, transactions and spheres of interests, or whether the world will tilt toward a new cooperative, fair and representative multilateral world order based on international institutions, rules and norms. The policy choices that India and other key powers make truly matter in this time of transition. They will set the direction of the future.
“The global power balance has shifted. The Global South has both demography and economy on its side.” India has “growth rates of 7%, probably projecting all the way to 2047,” Stubb noted, “and at the same time, it’s the biggest democracy in the world. The era of a Western-dominated world is over. That’s the disruption.”
For Stubb, India has lessons for the other middle powers that echo Carney’s prescriptions. “For your entire independence,” he pronounced to Modi and the other gathered dignitaries, “you have based your foreign policy on a pragmatic and realistic worldview. You’ve showed the rest of the world what strategic caution and safeguarding autonomy means, all the while championing multilateralism and global cooperation. It is time that we all became a little bit more Indian.
“Whether you call it non-alignment or multi-alignment, you’ve been careful not to rely solely on the goodwill of one partner or bloc. You have invested in your own security and actively developed partnerships in many directions. Your approach makes sense.”
Stubb’s practical proposals include creating two permanent seats for Asia, one of which would be held by India, plus two for Africa and one for Latin America on the UN Security Council. Equally, he says, the Bretton Woods institutions should be reformed. The countries that shape the future of the world economy should have a greater say.
In his vision, the World Trade Organization should also be reformed since “the current rules-based trade system is not delivering as it should, and trade is being wielded as a geopolitical tool, an instrument of power. In this area, India’s leadership is needed.”
Stubb further argues for creating rules and norms that address new realities that “bring stability but allow for diversity,” especially with respect to AI regulation.
For that, common basic rules and guardrails are needed so new technologies don’t deepen the digital divide between the developed and the developing world but bridge it. India, says Stubb, is both a driver and a bridge of AI and technology.”
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