It’s not about the “sovereign citizen” or “rugged individualists” as a first line of defense for their nation’s sovereignty.

But it hasn’t even been a month since the PM gave this wake-up call:

It seems that every day we are reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry. That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.

For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, we praised its principles, we benefited from its predictability. And because of that, we could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.

We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. That trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.

This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods: open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.

This bargain no longer works.

Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.

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Canadians know that our old, comfortable assumptions that our geography and alliance memberships automatically conferred prosperity and security – that assumption is no longer valid.

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Stop invoking “rules-based international order” as though it still functions as advertised. Call it what it is: a system of intensifying great power rivalry, where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as coercion.

Americans are not “following the rules” normally afforded to Western powers and we are hopelessly outmatched militarily. But consider how the US has lost foreign military conflicts when faced with armed local insurgencies in the past several decades.