Davos 2026, Greenland, and the Return of “Might Makes Right”

Subheadline: The World Economic Forum was built to sell cooperation. This week, it’s hosting a fight over territory, tariffs, and whether the postwar idea of “rules” still means anything.

Byline: 3 Narratives News | January 20, 2026

In Davos, the snow does something strange to power. It softens edges. It quiets footsteps. It makes even the hardest sentence feel like it was spoken politely.

But by day two of the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting, the alpine calm has been punctured by a very old argument, delivered in very modern instruments. Not tanks. Tariffs. Not conquest, at least not yet. Leverage. And at the center of it, a place most people can’t find on a map without help: Greenland.

The Forum came into this week under a high-minded banner, A Spirit of Dialogue. Its press release promised record attendance and an “impartial platform” for leaders to talk through a contested world. That language is still true in the literal sense. The doors are open, the microphones are hot, and the schedule is packed. But the mood has changed. Davos is not just hosting dialogue. It is hosting a test: whether sovereignty is still a principle, or now simply a price.

Callout: In Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, thousands marched toward the U.S. consulate chanting “Kalaallit Nunaat” (Greenland’s name in Greenlandic). In Copenhagen, protesters wore red caps that looked like MAGA hats, except the message read:

“Make America Go Away.”

What the World Economic Forum Is, and What It Was Built For

The World Economic Forum is not the United Nations. It does not sign treaties, command armies, or vote on sanctions. It is a Swiss-based organization that makes a different promise: if you put enough power in one room, some of it might become accountable to the presence of everyone else.

The WEF began in 1971 as the European Management Forum, founded by Klaus Schwab. It was initially about management, competitiveness, and the marriage of European industry with American-style corporate techniques. Over time, it expanded into something bigger: a stage where political leaders, CEOs, central bankers, and civil society could speak to the same audience, sometimes in the same sentence.

In 1987, it took the name “World Economic Forum.” A year later, the Forum’s mythology gained one of its most cited moments: the 1988 “Davos Declaration,” credited with helping Greece and Turkey step back from the brink of conflict. Davos has lived off that story ever since: the mountain town as neutral ground, dialogue as a tool that can sometimes outpace diplomacy.

And yet Davos also carries a permanent critique: that it is too polished, too elite, too distant from the people who experience the consequences of decisions made in boardrooms and ministries. This week’s Greenland standoff throws that critique into sharper relief, because it is not only about global strategy. It is about a small society with a real history of colonization and autonomy being pulled into a great-power argument about assets.

External context: According to the Forum’s own release, the 56th Annual Meeting is convening close to 3,000 participants from over 130 countries, including record levels of government attendance.

What Has Happened So Far at Davos 2026

Greenland did not arrive in Davos as a cultural sidebar. It arrived as a geopolitical headline.

Over the past several days, a dispute over U.S. pressure on Denmark and Greenland has spilled into public threats of tariffs, emergency coordination among European leaders, and street protests in Denmark and Greenland itself. In Nuuk, civil servants and students stood beside elected officials. In Copenhagen, solidarity protests drew crowds so large that organizers compared them to the entire population of Nuuk.

Greenland’s Prime Minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, addressed protesters in Nuuk and has publicly rejected the premise that Greenland can be treated like a purchasable object. Denmark’s Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, has framed the issue as one of territorial integrity, not transactional bargaining.

Meanwhile, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen used Davos to draw a bright line: Denmark and Greenland’s sovereignty is “non-negotiable,” while also announcing that the EU is preparing an Arctic security support package and a major investment push aimed at Greenland’s economy and infrastructure.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron went further, delivering the kind of blunt language that normally gets softened by diplomatic aides. At Davos, Macron said Europe would not “passively accept the law of the strongest,” warning that doing so leads to “vassalization.” He described a:

“shift towards a world without rules,”

and said Europe prefers “respect to bullies” and “rule of law to brutality.”

Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, took a different lane: the appeal to restraint. She urged leaders to avoid escalation, arguing that Greenland’s future should be determined by Greenlanders and warning against allowing rhetoric to substitute for diplomacy.

Then came the Canadian intervention that landed like a thrown stone in a glass room.

Mark Carney’s Davos Speech, and Why Delegates Stood Up

Watch: Mark Carney’s Davos address (YouTube)

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke at Davos with the tone of a man trying to stop the room from sleepwalking.

In the most quoted passage, Carney warned about the instinct of “middle powers” to appease in moments of fear. He described the temptation “to go along to get along, to accommodate, to avoid trouble,” and he rejected the bargain at the heart of appeasement: “to hope that compliance will buy safety.” Then he delivered the line that has been ricocheting through the forum’s hallways: “Well, it won’t.”

Multiple accounts described the room reacting with unusual intensity for Davos, including reports that Carney’s remarks ended with a standing ovation.

Short Overview (integrated): Carney’s argument, taken as a whole, is that the post–Cold War “rules-based international order” no longer functions as advertised. When rules are applied selectively and economic integration becomes coercive, pretending otherwise weakens middle powers. The choice, he suggests, is not between naive idealism and bunker isolation. It is a third path he calls values-based realism: build domestic strength, reduce vulnerabilities, and form flexible coalitions with other middle powers so sovereignty is defended by capability, not just rhetoric.

Key Points (Ordered from Most Important to Least Important)

The rules-based international order no longer functions as advertised. Power politics dominate, rules are applied selectively, and pretending otherwise undermines strategy.
“Living within the lie” weakens states. Silence and ritual compliance sustain a broken system. Naming reality is the first act of reclaiming leverage.
Economic integration has become a tool of coercion. Trade, finance, tariffs, and supply chains are now weapons. Dependence produces subordination, not stability.
Strategic autonomy is now unavoidable. States must secure food, energy, finance, and defense. When rules don’t protect you, resilience becomes sovereignty.
Pure self-reliance leads to a worse world. Fortress thinking makes the system poorer, more fragile, and less sustainable.
Middle powers face a defining strategic choice. Compete for hegemonic favor, or coordinate to create collective leverage.
Collective resilience beats national fortresses. Shared standards and pooled investment reduce cost and fragmentation while preserving sovereignty.
Canada adopts “values-based realism.” Principles remain firm, engagement becomes pragmatic and grounded in reality rather than nostalgia.
Domestic strength underpins credible foreign policy. Industrial depth and defense capability make values enforceable, not performative.
Diversification replaces dependence as risk management. Reducing exposure to any single hegemon enables consistent action without fear of retaliation.
Issue-specific coalitions replace weakened multilateralism. Flexible partnerships work where traditional institutions stall.
Consistency is essential to legitimacy. Uneven standards erode credibility and invite coercion.
Canada holds structural advantages. Energy, critical minerals, capital depth, talent, and stability allow Canada to act rather than react.
The old order is not coming back. Nostalgia delays adaptation. The task is construction, not restoration.
Middle powers can still shape outcomes, together. Scale and coordination remain powerful when exercised collectively.
Core message: Stop pretending. Name reality. Build strength at home. Act together abroad.

Narrative 1 (Side A): The Map Is Being Redrawn, and You Don’t Get a Vote

In this worldview, the speeches are perfume sprayed over a storm.

Great powers do not ask permission to defend their perimeter. They identify strategic ground and move to control it. Greenland, in this logic, is not a romantic icebound outpost. It is military geometry: Arctic sea lanes, radar positioning, satellite coverage, and mineral access at the top of the world. If Washington decides the Arctic is a frontline, Greenland becomes a keystone, whether Greenland likes it or not.

The tools of this era are cleaner than the tools of the last. You do not need an invasion to achieve compliance. You can use tariffs, investment packages, security guarantees, and cash proposals that turn sovereignty into a negotiation with an exit bonus.

And the reason this works is simple: most countries cannot afford to call the bluff. Middle powers live on trade. Small territories live on subsidies, infrastructure, and logistics chains. The moment the strongest actor in the system decides to squeeze, everyone else starts calculating how to survive the squeeze.

So the world sorts itself into zones of influence again, the way rivers re-form after a flood. The U.S. consolidates the Western Hemisphere and hardens the Arctic. Russia presses outward in what it defines as its historical neighborhood. China treats Taiwan as unfinished business. Meanwhile, the rest of the world learns a new etiquette: do not provoke, do not moralize, and always leave the biggest power a ladder to climb down without humiliation.

In this narrative, Davos is not a guardian of rules. It is the showroom where rules are being liquidated. You can applaud sovereignty onstage, but offstage the spreadsheets are already being updated.

Narrative 2 (Side B): The Middle Powers Are Waking Up, and “Rules” Still Have Teeth

In this worldview, what is happening is not destiny. It is a challenge, and challenges can be met.

Sovereignty is not sentimental. It is the core technology of peace. If powerful states can threaten tariffs to gain territory, then every border becomes conditional and every smaller nation becomes a potential acquisition. The only way to stop that world from spreading is to make coercion expensive.

This is where Europe’s response matters. Ursula von der Leyen’s language about Denmark and Greenland being “non-negotiable” is not a slogan. It is a signal that the EU intends to treat economic coercion as coercion, and to respond proportionally, including through security coordination and investment intended to reduce Greenland’s vulnerability.

Macron’s harsh phrasing at Davos is the second signal: Europe will not “passively accept the law of the strongest.” It will not accept “vassalization.” It will name what it sees, and it will consider tools to hit back.

Britain’s Rachel Reeves plays the stabilizer in this story, arguing against escalation and insisting Greenland’s future must be decided by Greenlanders. The point is not to humiliate the United States. The point is to prevent a precedent that turns the Atlantic alliance into a shakedown relationship.

And Carney’s speech becomes the bridge between Europe and every other country that isn’t a superpower: stop performing belief in a system that no longer protects you, and start building coalitions that can. Diversify supply chains, coordinate standards, pool investment, and create collective leverage. The democratic world does not have to be an empire to be a force. It has to be organized.

In this narrative, the “new world order” is not a funeral for rules. It is the moment rules have to be defended like they matter, or they will not survive at all.

Greenland’s People, and the Future Davos Can’t Negotiate

The loudest argument in Davos is about sovereignty. The quietest reality is about identity.

Greenland is home to about 57,000 people. It is not an empty chessboard. It is a living society, with a cultural memory shaped by Danish rule, autonomy, and the long, unfinished project of self-determination. Greenlanders are largely Inuit, and the language of everyday life carries a history that does not fit neatly into a security briefing.

Listen to the names coming out of the protests and you hear the human scale behind the strategic talk.

In Nuuk, a student named Parnuna Olsen, 25, told reporters that:

“the president has nothing to do here.”

A civil servant, Naja Holm, said she showed up because Greenland is not for sale and this is their home. In Denmark, Julie Rademacher, who chairs an organization for Greenlanders living in Denmark, said the protests were also “a message to the world” to wake up.

This is the quiet, constant clash beneath the geopolitics: the people most affected are asked to behave like bystanders to their own future.

There is also a practical layer Davos prefers not to linger on. If Greenland is pulled harder into a U.S. security orbit, what happens to the services and subsidies that currently anchor daily life? Denmark funds large parts of Greenland’s public administration. Greenland has autonomy, but Denmark still controls defense and foreign policy. Any sudden shift in alignment raises questions that are not rhetorical. They are clinical: health care systems, education pipelines, policing, infrastructure, and the terms of democratic accountability.

Then there is the other Davos obsession that keeps humming in the background: AI and automation. Leaders talk as if today’s struggle is purely about tariffs and territory, but the next decade may be shaped by something even more destabilizing: who owns the machines, who controls the compute, and who sets the distribution rules in economies where labor is no longer the main bargaining chip.

The overlooked question: If sovereignty is being tested today by tariffs and coercive trade tools, what happens tomorrow when it is tested by infrastructure dependence, capital flows, and technological chokepoints that no parliament fully controls?

Key Takeaways

Davos 2026 is convening under the theme A Spirit of Dialogue, but the meeting is being dominated by a Greenland sovereignty crisis and tariff threats.
Greenlanders have protested in Nuuk, with solidarity protests in Copenhagen, rejecting the idea that Greenland can be bought or coerced.
Ursula von der Leyen said Denmark and Greenland’s sovereignty is “non-negotiable,” and announced an EU Arctic security and investment package.
Emmanuel Macron said Europe will not “passively accept the law of the strongest,” warning of “vassalization” in a “world without rules.”
Mark Carney warned that countries may “hope that compliance will buy safety,” adding: “Well, it won’t,” and his speech circulated as a blueprint for “values-based realism.”

Questions This Article Answers

What is the World Economic Forum, and why does Davos matter?
Why is Greenland at the center of a transatlantic crisis in 2026?
What did Mark Carney mean by “values-based realism,” and why did it resonate?
What are European leaders signaling about tariffs, sovereignty, and economic coercion?
What does “new world order” mean in practical terms right now?

FAQ

What is the World Economic Forum, in plain English?

The WEF is a Swiss-based organization that convenes leaders from government, business, and civil society. It cannot pass laws or treaties, but it shapes agendas by putting powerful actors in the same room and making their positions visible.

Was Davos created after World War II?

Not directly. The Forum began in 1971. But it grew inside the postwar framework that emphasized cooperation through institutions, trade rules, and diplomacy as a guardrail against conflict.

What did Mark Carney say that stood out at Davos 2026?

Carney warned against appeasement by middle powers, arguing that compliance will not buy safety. He framed the moment as a rupture in the post–Cold War order and argued for values-based realism grounded in domestic strength and coalitions.

What are European leaders saying about Greenland?

Von der Leyen described Denmark and Greenland’s sovereignty as non-negotiable and outlined EU plans for Arctic security support and investment. Macron said Europe will not accept the law of the strongest, warning of vassalization if Europe yields to coercion.

What does “new world order” mean in this Davos context?

Leaders are using the phrase to describe a shift toward open great-power rivalry, where trade and finance are increasingly used as pressure tools, and where smaller states must decide whether to accommodate coercion or coordinate resistance.

External sources (authoritative) for readers:
World Economic Forum press release: Annual Meeting 2026 |
WEF: Special Address by Mark Carney |
United Nations Charter (official explainer)

Davos 2026, Greenland, and the Return of “Might Makes Right”

Davos 2026, Greenland, and the Return of “Might Makes Right”