"Middle powers" — Mark Carney, Davos | Governance study group

Jan 23, 2026

Sharing our experimental call summaries.
Al-generated digests of Yak Collective study groups.

Theme: What does “variable geometry” and middle‑power politics really amount to in the current global order?

1. Variable Geometry & Middle Powers

“Variable geometry” lands as a compelling metaphor (gravity, counterweights, smaller bodies combining to balance big “monsters”) but a weak theory of geopolitics.
Many participants see the speech as an “end note” of an old technocratic era:
- Makes the centrist policy establishment happy.
- Unlikely to translate into serious geopolitical action.
“Middle powers” as a framing feels useful:
- Future conflict among them may look more like standards wars (technical/financial/infra) than territorial clashes.
- New “coalitions” look like a smaller‑scope, rebranded rules‑based order rather than a genuinely new architecture.

From a Canadian vantage point, the speech was “kind of a big deal,” but:
- Canada often ends up aligning with US policy even when it doesn’t want to.
- Example: tariffs and restrictions on Chinese EVs; small, technical rollbacks get traded for equally small concessions (e.g., reopening specific commodity imports).
The gap between talk and walk is persistent:
- Rhetoric about values, climate, and multilateralism coexists with increased fossil investment and incrementalist tax policy.
There is some genuine thought about “values beyond GDP,” but it isn’t obviously reshaping hard policy choices.

The “variable geometry” proposal is read less as innovation and more as:
- Repackaged, scaled‑down rules‑based order.
- Mild loosening of WTO‑style enforcement while still relying on the same infrastructure (most trade still flows through it).
Think‑tank motifs like “strategic autonomy” and “open strategic autonomy” predate the speech; this feels like branding on top of older debates.
The cheering from traditional policy circles is seen as a tell:
- The same establishment that has lost real leverage is thrilled by this speech.
- That suggests symbolism more than substance.

Drawing on recent work on the “underground empire” of infrastructure:
- Over the last 30 years, a dense technosphere of finance, data, and logistics has emerged.
- Often described as “weaponized interdependence,” but functionally it has been weaponized unilateralism:
  - Only one actor had the capacity to fully weaponize the network.
The tools in this system are scalpels, not bludgeons:
- Earlier administrations used them relatively surgically.
- Later attempts to wield them as blunt instruments have:
  - Reduced their effectiveness.
  - Eroded institutional knowledge about how to use them at all.
Result: large zones of the contemporary “power map” are effectively uninhabited:
- Complex tools exist but no one is consistently capable of steering them.
- Others who might be more careful lack access.

Today’s “great power competition” is framed as a theatrical echo of the 19th‑century “great game”:
- Symbolic interventions, photo‑op peace summits, and small special‑ops dramas.
- The look and language of great‑power rivalry without comparable scale or stakes.
In parallel, a pervasive “rule by theater” is observed:
- Governments in parts of the Global South have long relied on highly theatrical statecraft.
- Social media accelerates and globalizes this style.
- The US is converging toward similar theatricality, often having more in common with those systems than with quieter, smaller states.

Extending the old “graveyard of empires” metaphor:
- The online/digital technosphere is proposed as a new graveyard.
- No state really knows how to master it.
- Attempts to seize and control it as a blunt tool tend to damage the would‑be wielder.
The digital realm is described as:
- An untamed wilderness (“new nature”).
- A chaotic space in which overconfident actors can easily be degraded or undone.

Observation from current video/streaming culture:
- Long, low‑brow, often physical comedy streams with huge audiences.
- Affective tone similar to “family WhatsApp forwards”: broad, easily shareable, virality‑optimized.
Many political leaders appear to be adapting—consciously or not—to this communication register:
- Adopting its cadence, imagery, and spectacle.
- Slipping into a “clown archetype” while trying to appeal to the online mass audience.
This is seen as a major failure mode:
- Leaders become stuck in theatrical personas shaped by algorithmic incentives.
- Ties back into the idea of digital space as a graveyard of empires.

One thread focused on when individuals move from observer to actor:
- What actually triggers a person to leave their desk and join a barricade?
- Many wait until the conflict is local, which may be “clearly not the right move,” but alternative thresholds are unclear.
Contemporary protest tactics surfaced:
- Encrypted group coordination, low‑tech signaling (whistles, etc.), improvisational methods.
- Seen across different sites: European capitals, North America, and other conflict‑adjacent areas.
Long‑term protest thinkers and practitioners were suggested as further reading, especially those who:
- Bridge high‑level analysis and practical street‑level tactics.
- Have lived through cycles from WTO protests to contemporary summit actions.

A poignant reminder:
- A once‑regular participant dropped off the map after a regional war escalated.
- Despite VPNs and workarounds, staying connected became too difficult—and contact ceased.
This grounds the discussion:
- Geopolitics and digital infrastructure are not abstractions; they shape who can even show up to conversations like this.
- “No part of life is truly immune” to these shifts.

Participants sketched some candidate directions for further reading and future sessions:

Middle‑Power Architectures
- Historical and contemporary:
  - Hanseatic League
  - ASEAN
  - SAARC
  - Non‑Aligned Movement
- With a skeptical eye toward contemporary “variable geometry” branding.
Technosphere Governance
- Weaponized infrastructure and “underground empires.”
- The distinction between scalpels and bludgeons in digital power.
- How institutional memory of complex tools is created, eroded, or lost.
Theater, Clowning, and Platform Logic
- How mass humor ecosystems (YouTube, TikTok, etc.) shape elite political communication.
- The “clown trap” as a structural feature of platform politics.
Protest and Thresholds
- First‑person accounts from long‑time organizers.
- How people decide when to act, and how tactics evolve with both tech and repression.