Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

At the World Economic Forum this year, the audience of wealthy and powerful was treated to the kind of trash-talking that was once reserved for the likes of the Jerry Springer Show. Powerful leaders boasted, belittled, and threatened. Instead of infidelities and family secrets, the conversations at Davos took place against the backdrop of proposed land grabs and shocking betrayals.

Consider the speech by Volodymyr Zelensky. The Ukrainian leader lambasted European leaders for not standing up to the ayatollahs in Iran, not investigating Russian war crimes, not breaking their addiction to Russian energy, not supplying more advanced weaponry to Kyiv. “Instead of taking the lead in defending freedom worldwide, especially when America’s focus shifts elsewhere, Europe looks lost trying to convince the U.S. president to change, but he will not change,” Zelensky complained. He diplomatically failed to point out where America’s focus has shifted to.

The Ukrainian president was effectively criticizing his most resolute allies in what might have been a bid for Donald Trump’s approval. After all, Trump has also been dumping on Europe even as he has pushed NATO allies to spend more on their own defense. Zelensky, using stirring rhetoric and appeals to high-minded principles, was essentially piling on by urging European countries to get a grip. He received a standing ovation.

Then there was Mark Carney. The Canadian prime minister made a stirring appeal to middle powers to unite against Donald Trump’s assault on the world order, though he never mentioned the U.S. president’s name. Carney said,

“If great powers abandon even the pretense of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from “transactionalism” will become harder to replicate. Hegemons cannot continually monetize their relationships. Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty. They’ll buy insurance, increase options in order to rebuild sovereignty — sovereignty that was once grounded in rules, but will be increasingly anchored in the ability to withstand pressure.”

Here, too, was a threat: that the........

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