Ep. 176: Davos, Greenland and Carney’s speech
About this episode
Darren discusses the implications of the Davos meetings and Mark Carney's speech on international order and Australia's position.
A week after his emergency episode on President Trump’s threats to acquire Greenland, Darren returns with a rapid debrief of the Davos meetings—and what it means for the world (and for Australia). The immediate crisis appears paused: Trump has shifted from “ownership” to a negotiating “framework” focused on Arctic security, basing access, and keeping China and Russia out. Still, Darren thinks the sovereignty question is not resolved, and these events are a marker of deeper institutional decay. Darren then unpacks Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s much-discussed Davos speech: a blunt warning that the world is experiencing a rupture of the international order, not a smooth transition. He shares Carney’s sense of urgency, but challenges parts of the diagnosis—and explains why those analytical distinctions matter for policy choices. He assesses Trump’s proposed “Board of Peace” as a signal of how personalist, status-driven institutions can emerge when rules weaken. Darren also reflects on power—arguing that Trump’s performative displays of raw strength risk the Athenian problem of overreach and backlash, while for middle powers real leverage often lies in domestic resilience: the…
Topics covered
- Davos
- Greenland
- international order
- Arctic security
- Canada
- Mark Carney
- Trump
- Australia
Keywords
- sovereignty
- institutional decay
- Board of Peace
- domestic resilience
More episodes of Australia in the World
- Ep. 183: Hormuz—the new nuclear
- Ep. 182: Another wild 48 hours on Iran, plus the Australian lens
- Ep. 181: An even more dangerous phase looms in Iran
- Ep. 180: How will the Iran conflict end?
- Ep. 179: Iran — Two weeks in
- Ep. 178: The attack on Iran
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