Mark Landler

And essentially what Mark Carney said is, Let me be direct.

That system is over.

That bargain no longer exists between the great powers and the middle powers.

We now live in an openly predatory world.

And for countries like Canada, like other European countries, to survive in that world, they're going to need to be much more pragmatic, to some extent less values-driven, willing to cut deals with a greater number of actors, including China.

And so if Donald Trump, in his characteristically visceral way, was laying out the threat, Mark Carney was supplying in a deeply articulate way the response.

Well, this is, of course, the heart of the matter.

And on one level, you have to say they don't have a lot of cards.

Were the United States to launch an all-out military assault on Greenland, there is a 0% chance that Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Denmark are going to go to war with the United States.

Now, remember, of course, President Trump appeared to rule that out.

But, you know, with regard to other threats, notably the threat in Ukraine, the threat from Russia, you're already beginning to see the outlines of that kind of response.

Germany

has joined France and the UK in building what they call a coalition of the willing, a proposal to send tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine or around Ukraine to help secure the country in the event of a ceasefire with Russia.

you could see a series of smaller alliances between Baltic countries or between Mediterranean countries.

So it doesn't have the overarching feel of the NATO alliance, but there are these more piecemeal arrangements that countries can make with each other.

And I think this is what Carney is talking about.

It's messier, it's riskier, it's more expensive, but in this predatory world, it may be the best that these middle powers can hope for.

Generations.

Europe, because it was under this American security umbrella since the end of World War II, would have to take literally decades to build up an independent security force that had no reliance or little reliance on the United States.

And that would involve extremely difficult decisions by governments about how to spend public resources.