Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the quiet part out loud at the World Economic Forum: what many call the global rules-based order was either collapsing or had collapsed already.In the last few weeks, the United States, whose military and financial heft underpinned much of that order, has invaded Venezuela, has threatened to invade the European territory of Greenland, and has promised to levy tariffs on any of its Western allies that might oppose it.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listMoreover, in place of the United Nations, the organisation intended to embody the modern world order, US President Donald Trump is pushing what he has hinted may be its successor, the “Board of Peace“.Speaking in the Swiss town of Davos on Tuesday, Carney accepted that, in light of the behaviour of the US – most recently in its push to take Greenland – the rules-based order was essentially over.In its place, he said, was the coming era of great power rivalry, where the comfortable “fiction” of the past withered in the unforgiving light of day.“The system’s power comes not from its truth, but from everyone’s willingness to perform as if it were true, and its fragility comes from the same source,” he told world leaders. “When even one person stops performing … the illusion begins to crack.”“We participated in the rituals, and we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality,” Carney added. “This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.”In Trump’s s …
