But I am going to do it before I change my mind. Sadly it is not the whole article as I do not have a paid subscription to Breaking the New but it is still very very powerful, and think I can watch the whole speech from the link in the article. So here goes:
| Subscribe here for moreA Speech for the History Books.And for the here and now. A memorable discourse on America’s place in the world, by the leader of a US neighbor and former friend. Mark Carney, prime minister of Canada, acknowledging a rare-for-Davos sustained standing ovation, at the end of his brief (17 minutes) but exquisitely composed address to the 1,800-person crowd of world financial and political leaders yesterday. He explained American values, and lamented the effects of their permanent loss, far more eloquently than the person who ranted, complained, bragged, and lied on that same stage this morning. And who left the stage to no applause except from his own staffers. (Photo Harun Ozalp/Anadolu via Getty Images)It’s impossible to judge the long-term effect of oratory, in the short term. Many presentations that loom large in history were almost ignored at the time. Here’s just one example of many: At Harvard’s commencement ceremony in 1947, then-Secretary of State George Marshall spent 12 minutes outlining why it was in America’s interest to help Europe recover from the devastation of World War II. Even though this would mean Americans pouring more tax money into the continent where so many of them had already sacrificed. Even though it would include helping Germany, so recently the Allies’ bitter foe. At the time, the speech barely drew any coverage. But eventually it was recognized as the debut of what became the Marshall Plan, which in turn was the basis for Marshall himself receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953.¹None of us can know for sure whether yesterday’s brief address at Davos, by Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney, will similarly be remembered as marking a turning point in understanding world power, and of America’s role. But there’s a chance it will be. And in any case, to keep it above the slurry of the latest outrage news, it’s worth noticing the craft, the composition, and the content of these 17 minutes on stage. I’ll call this out with line-by-line annotations on the text, below. But the main accomplishments of the speech were these:It made several important ideas “real,” by naming them. That is one of the most powerful things any piece of writing can do. Through the speech, Carney threaded the idea that world relations were at a rupture, not a “transition.” He never dignified Donald Trump by specifying him as the source of this rupture. But he didn’t need to. At each stage of the speech he gave other concepts memorable names, as I’ll note below.The conceptual originality of the speech was the power of the less powerful. The “great powers” had given up any pretense of self-restraint. By that Carney meant, and didn’t need to spell out, Russia, China, and the United States, It was now up to everyone else, including “middle powers” like Canada, to fend for themselves, and for their values. With many adjustments for scale, Carney was paralleling the message that democracy in the United States now depends less on its once-reliable institutions than on the millions of individuals who are now standing up, wherever and however they can. The speech was remarkably tight and coherent, in imagery and argument. The standard convention-address by a world leader has several groaning transitions, along the lines of, “Turning now to world affairs….” Carney’s started with a theme—the world has changed, forever—and returned to that at the end.It pulled off a trick harder than it sounds: Touching on complex themes, without sounding pedantic or “mansplaining.” Carney was talking about how an era of rules-based globalization had brought both benefits and problems, but that overall the benefits had been greater. He lightly alluded to the items on each side of the ledger—and of the new ledger to come, confident that his audience would follow.The speech had a very low quotient of what speechwriters call “BOMFOG.” That stands for “Brotherhood of Man, Fatherhood of God”; it is based on 1960s-era tropes from Nelson Rockefeller; and it means write-it-in-your-sleep boilerplate. Only once or twice did Carney stray into this or other “speechwriterly” territory.By contrast, the speech referred several times to honesty—and exemplified it, through Carney’s un-sentimental view of Canada’s place in the world, and the options available to it and other countries like it.The speech also referred to a kind of modesty, in recognizing the limits of what nations or networks could do. Carney’s delivery reflected that—natural and almost conversational-sounding, brisk rather than full of dramatic pauses. Making hard things look easy is the measure of skill in many realms. Carney’s speech was carefully written enough to sound spontaneous.I understand, from sources “in a position to know,” that the ideas in the speech are ones Carney has been discussing with his allied counterparts, but that the composition was mainly his own. On the one hand, that is what staffers are always supposed to say about the boss. On the other hand, Carney delivered these phrases as if they all came naturally, rather than showing up by surprise on the prompter.Sentence by sentence, it had a number of graceful touches. I’ll mention some of them below.And it was short.ShareIn that spirit, let’s move to the annotated text. I’m using the for-release version from Davos, where you can also see a video of Carney delivering the speech. I’m leaving the spelling in original (ie, non-US) form. Defence vs defense, rigour vs rigor, etc. I’ll highlight words and phrases in bold, and add comments in itals and brackets, [like this]. Here we go:Address by Canadian Prime Minister, World Economic Forum, Davos, January 20, 2026.I’m going to start in French, and then I’ll switch back to English.[Davos note: The following is translated from French]It is both a pleasure, and a duty, to be with you tonight in this pivotal moment that Canada and the world going through.Today I will talk about a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, [starting right out by naming three developments that will run through the speech: That the old order has been ruptured; that many have lived in a ‘pleasant fiction’; and that it was time to face harsh reality] where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints.On the other hand, I would like to tell you that the other countries, especially intermediate powers like Canada, are not powerless. [Introduction of the other main theme: What the rest of us can do, when the mighty have lost all restraint.] They have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the various states.The power of the less powerful starts with honesty. [A line delivered in French that summarizes the speech as a whole.][Davos note: Carney returns to speaking in English]It seems that every day we’re reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry, that the rules based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must. [These kinds of speech-writerly ‘antithesis’ touches can be overdone. I thought this one worked, in part because it was delivered in a natural-sounding way, as opposed to “See what I did here!”] And this aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable, as the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself.And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along, to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety. [Addressed to the business leaders in the room; to the European leaders who have tried to cozy up to Trump; to the world in general.]Well, it won’t. [Power in concision. The confidence of knowing he need not spell this out.]So, what are our options?In 1978, the Czech dissident Václav Havel, later president, wrote an essay called The Power of the Powerless, and in it, he asked a simple question: how did the communist system sustain itself? [When building up to ‘How could this happen?’ points, the easiest and most familiar allusion is to 1930s Germany. Carney has instead a much fresher story, from a generation later, from ‘modern’ Europe, and about countries whose post-Communist revival is the backdrop for many of the personal and business stories represented at Davos.]And his answer began with a greengrocer… |
Anne Chetwynd
Maggie… it was a superb speech!! You can watch it on YouTube. And this analysis is wonderful. I would love to be able to read the whole thing but, like you, do not have a paid subscription.
Maggie
Almost tempted to get one.
Hope you are well
Maggie
Aileen
Yes, future realist, thank goodness he is at the helm,
Maggie
Absolutely
M