When the prime minister of Canada, Mark Carney, told the world at Davos that the so-called ‘rules-based order’ was collapsing, it made headlines because it sounded like a verdict from inside the club. Yet the real shock is not that this order is dying, but that Western capitals kept pretending it was alive.

Carney’s intervention landed as Europe feels newly exposed. Donald Trump’s threats over Greenland unsettled Denmark and rattled those leaders who now sound like guardians of international law. Denmark, having fought alongside the US in Afghanistan and Iraq, finds itself treated as a disposable pawn. For decades, Europe accepted that America would always protect it. Now it sees a different America, one that views allies as leverage.

European leaders repeated ‘rules-based international order’ like a sacred incantation. But Europe is late to its own sermon. The order it claims to defend was not consistently rules-based; it was Western-led, often Washington-led. Europe was not an innocent bystander. It was a partner, sometimes enthusiastic, sometimes hesitant but rarely willing to break ranks.

The phrase itself has been slippery. It sounds neutral but isn’t. The order was never purely about law. It was about shaping the world to suit those who claimed to uphold the rules.

The post-Cold War period made this tension permanent. With the Soviet Union gone, the US stood unchallenged. That should have been the moment to strengthen international law and empower the UN. Instead, Washington increasingly treated global rules as optional. European allies adjusted their moral language accordingly.

The 1990s opened with a clear signal. In Panama, the US asserted the authority to seize foreign leaders, suspending sovereignty when it deemed necessary.

Justifications were dressed in legal terms, but the........

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