The New World Order
- mpgoede
- 3 minutes ago
- 2 min read
The New World Order
22 January 2026
While we rightly celebrate our sporting achievements, a new world order is taking shape. This is happening, among other places, at the gathering of the global elite in Davos during the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum—an event that is far from uncontroversial.
Here, we only start paying attention to this real transformation after developments around Maduro escalate, and even then we do so superficially, because our media and universities lack the necessary resources. Ironically, this does make for very good television in the Netherlands. A friend, Jelle, sent me a link to the programme Eva, which I had already watched. In that broadcast, two experts (including a historian) explain that we are now living in a post-bipolar world order and that we should think in terms of a kind of billiard-ball model. According to this theory, a new balance will only emerge once five billiard balls—five power blocs—have formed. In addition to the United States, China and Russia, these would also include Europe and possibly the Global South, with India as a key player (NPO, 2026).
A few days later, the Canadian prime minister expressed a remarkably similar view. In a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mark Carney said that the old, U.S.-led, rules-based world order is irreversibly over and is being replaced by an era of intense great-power rivalry. He argued that countries like Canada, which once benefited from this system, must now work together with other middle powers to protect their interests, because obedience to dominant states no longer guarantees security. Carney criticised economic coercion and warned that the idea that multilateral institutions will automatically guarantee order is a “pleasant fiction” that no longer works. He added that the world is currently experiencing a rupture in the global order and that middle powers must band together, because “if you are not at the table, you are on the menu” (Carney, 2026).
The fact is that we must realise that, from now on, the world looks fundamentally different.
Miguel Goede
References (APA)
Carney, M. (2026, January). Speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos: The old world order is over. The Guardian.
NPO. (2026). Eva [Television programme], Episode 230. NPO 1.
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