India, Jan. 25 -- At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a speech that was widely praised as forward-looking, principled, and strategically mature. Global commentators lauded his call for middle powers to build "coalitions for subsectors of the world" and for democracies to cooperate in reshaping international norms. In a moment of crisis fatigue and geopolitical rupture, Carney offered what appeared to be vision. The centralized media applauded.

Yet the accolades missed the deeper warning embedded in the Prime Minister's remarks. This was not a speech celebrating Canada's position in the world; it was a requiem for a rules-based order that no longer exists. Carney invoked Thucydides, warned of the col...