Moving on from Davos
Last Saturday, Prime Minister Mark Carney issued a statement declaring that “Canada supports the United States” in its strikes against Iran.
Two days later in New Delhi, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand struck a noticeably different tone. Carefully avoiding the question of the legality of the strikes, she spoke of the need for a diplomatic solution and reminded reporters that Canada would not participate in any military operations.
Then on Tuesday – after avoiding reporters in New Delhi — the prime minister himself clarified that Canada’s support had been given “reluctantly” and in a “limited” way, while calling for de-escalation and respect for international law.
The original statement has now been reinterpreted after the fact. On Tuesday, Mr. Carney even felt compelled to specify that Canada’s position had not been a “blank cheque” — a defence that is all the more revealing given that no one had accused him of signing one.
This was more than a recalibration. This was a retreat. And the explanations that followed it, inevitably bring us back to the speech the prime minister delivered in Davos only a few weeks ago.
At Davos, Mr. Carney did not deliver a routine address. He deliberately offered an ambitious reading of the current geopolitical moment, denouncing the “fictions” of the old international order while calling on middle powers to move beyond comfortable complacency.
The speech was widely praised in Canada and abroad as a clear articulation of a worldview suited to a fragmented world: a “values-based realpolitik” grounded in respect for sovereignty, the consistent application of the same standards to allies and adversaries, and a prohibition on the use of force except in accordance with the UN Charter.
It was presented as a framework suited to the Trump era — a promise of coherence in a world unsettled by incoherence and chaos.
Yet only weeks later, in the aftermath of the U.S. strikes, he endorsed the use of force by an ally without explaining how that action fits within the principles invoked in Davos.
At Davos, Mr. Carney quoted Václav Havel and called on countries to take the “sign” out of the shop window — to stop pretending. Nations, he argued, should face reality and apply the same rules to everyone.
Yet that is precisely what Canada’s position on the Iran strikes — and the subsequent clarifications — make difficult to sustain.
Those – including the Prime Minister — now turning to the Davos speech to explain the recent twists in Canadian foreign policy will invoke realism. They will argue that the world has changed, that the old order is broken, that middle powers must navigate shifting power balances, and that strategic caution is unavoidable.
But realism is a moving concept. It changes with circumstances, partners, and political cycles. By its nature, it is transactional.
And in a world where the only constant is the speed of change, a foreign policy built on constant adjustments eventually loses its anchor.
A foreign policy cannot be grounded in the prohibition of the use of force while remaining silent when force is used by a convenient ally.
One can defend the American strikes. One can condemn them. One can avoid judgment. But one cannot simultaneously proclaim a new normative framework and avoid the implications that follow from it.
The Davos speech was ambitious, elegant, and carefully constructed. It offered an appealing analytical framework for a fractured world.
But an analytical framework – elegant as it may be — does not a foreign policy make.
In that speech, Mr. Carney described an approach based on “variable geometry”: different coalitions depending on the issue, built around shared interests and values.
Yet when variable geometry applies not only to alliances but also to principles, the problem becomes something else entirely.
If principles are always subordinated to circumstances, they cease to be principles. They become variables.
At that point, strategic flexibility becomes indistinguishable from the very complacency Mr. Carney condemned in Davos.
Moving beyond Davos does not mean rejecting the ambition of a clear-eyed foreign policy. It means recognizing that a policy constantly adjusted to shifting winds is meaningless.