A Carney doctrine for a third way in global politics Today World News

As Prime Minister, Mark Carney has been trying to advance a new framework for Canada’s identity and engagement with the world. In his speech at Davos on Tuesday (January 20, 2026), Mr. Carney outlined a new agenda for the world — a “third path”. The suggestion seems to be to steer clear of the emerging rivalry between the U.S. and China, premised on what he called a “values-based realism”, citing Finnish President Alexander Stubb.

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Mr. Carney stands out among Western leaders for acknowledging the severe limits of the claims of the liberal international order. His framework is relevant for other middle powers, including and particularly India. His speech comes soon after he visited Beijing and announced a strategic partnership with China, in a turnaround in the frosty ties between the two countries. “In a world of great-power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice: compete with each other for favour or combine to create a third path with impact,” he said in Davos.

Rupture in the world order

While other leaders of the West are trying to brush off the current volatility in U.S. policy and behaviour as an aberration induced by just one person — President Donald Trump — Mr. Carney sees it as a rupture, not a transition, and expects no return to any old order. Because, Mr. Carney said, the old order was about living a lie. “You cannot ‘live within the lie’ of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination.”

This introspection is rare among Western liberals, who have been labouring to frame the current flux in the global order as a battle between democracy versus authoritarianism. Mr. Carney — an avowed liberal in social and economic policies — offers fresh thinking and a new direction for other countries to deal with the uncertainties. His clarity and courage are particularly remarkable when compared to the confusion and panic of French President Emmanuel Macron and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer. “On Arctic sovereignty, we stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark and fully support their unique right to determine Greenland’s future,” Mr. Carney said amid reports of U.S. plans to annex it.

The self-styled ‘reformers’ in India have always argued that New Delhi lost out because of its hesitation to integrate with the U.S.-led order. India historically tried to avoid the subordination that comes with integration even while seeking better relations with the West, and particularly the U.S. India has also been noticing the vulnerabilities of countries that totally integrated their financial systems or defence capabilities with the U.S.

Call for cooperation

What could well be a preview of a Carney Doctrine is relevant for India, with strategic autonomy at its core, in a new era of great-power rivalry. But strategic autonomy is not antithetical to global cooperation and it need not be isolationism according to Mr. Carney. “A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile and less sustainable.” “And the question for middle powers, like Canada, is not whether to adapt to the new reality — we must. The question is whether we adapt by simply building higher walls or whether we can do something more ambitious,” he said in his call for more cooperation among them.

Mr. Carney counted India among his priorities in this outlook. “In the past few days, we have concluded new strategic partnerships with China and Qatar…. We’re negotiating free-trade pacts with India, ASEAN, Thailand, the Philippines and Mercosur.”

Ambitious framework

These partnerships of middle powers could be the ambitious framework, by enhancing mutual cooperation against the hegemons. Middle powers share vulnerabilities which get leveraged by big powers. “… when we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness. We accept what’s offered. We compete with each other to be the most accommodating… This is not sovereignty. It’s the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination,” said Mr. Carney. He said his approach to Beijing would be “calibrated”, but the partnership would grow. To be a stable, resilient country, domestic politics matters a lot, and Mr. Carney said: “Canada is a pluralistic society that works. Our public square is loud, diverse and free.”

Critics see contradictions in Canada’s actions and Mr. Carney’s rhetoric. But that exactly is the loss of autonomy and weakening of sovereignty that he spoke about. Mr. Carney is speaking from experience. “Middle powers must act together because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu,” he said. India too has experience, though it is not speaking.