The Most Important Foreign Policy Speech in Years

What It Covers

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivers a Davos speech declaring the end of the liberal international order, arguing that America's weaponization of economic interdependence—using dollar systems, supply chains, and technology platforms as coercion tools—has fundamentally broken the bargain that made globalization work. International relations professor Henry Farrell explains how US power has become "enshittified" like tech platforms.

Key Questions Answered

• •Weaponized Interdependence Framework: The US exploits its control over dollar clearing systems to project power globally. Any international bank needs correspondent relations with US banks to access dollars, making them subject to US regulation. Post-9/11, America used this to cut Iran from global finance, forcing barter trade. This infrastructure coercion now extends to credit cards, Google services, and payment systems against targets like ICC judges.
• •Liberal Order as Self-Restraint: The liberal international order functioned as a quasi-constitutional system where America voluntarily bound itself to rules, making allies comfortable with deep integration despite US power asymmetry. Trump's transactionalism destroys this bargain by explicitly demanding tribute and threatening allies, making countries realize dependence on America has become subordination rather than partnership, fundamentally changing the risk calculation of integration.
• •Platform Enshittification Analogy: US hegemony follows the same pattern as tech platforms: initially add value to attract users, then extract value once they're locked in. Early Google search was excellent; now it pushes affiliate links. Similarly, America provided security and open markets to build integration, but now leverages that dependence for coercion. Canada faces this dilemma with fifth-generation fighter aircraft—deeply embedded in US military platforms that can be shut off.
• •Middle Power Hedging Strategy: Carney advocates Canada, Europe, Japan, and South Korea building independent platforms and diversifying relationships to reduce US dependence, even at significant economic cost. Canada's deal with China on electric vehicle tariffs and Qatar partnership exemplify this approach. Countries calculate that reliance on a predictable authoritarian thousands of miles away beats dependence on an unpredictable neighbor with authoritarian tendencies.
• •Coordination Problem of Power: Political transitions depend on recreating collective knowledge around new patterns. Trump's advantage is using violence and incentives to make joining his coalition seem strategically necessary. His fatal weakness is inability to commit to self-restraint—the Paul Weiss law firm capitulated early but got squeezed and reputationally destroyed anyway, signaling to others that deals with Trump aren't honored, undermining long-term cooperation.
• •Thucydides Misread as Realpolitik: The Melian Dialogue—where Athens tells Melos the strong do what they can and weak suffer what they must before massacring them—is commonly cited as realist wisdom. Thucydides actually presents it as Athenian hubris leading to collapse. Athens' assumption it could keep getting away with pure power projection resulted in failed expeditions, Spartan occupation, and loss of hegemony, paralleling America's current trajectory.