#23 Gray Area

2026 Davos Summit although titled “The Spirit of Dialogue,” this theme appeared less as a sign of renewed global optimism and more as an explicit acknowledgment of the loss of common ground. Throughout the summit, the contrast between Trump’s familiar confidence and the palpable sense of systemic distrust among other leaders was unmistakable. While no one formally declared the system broken, no one genuinely believed it still functioned as it once had.

This atmosphere of uncertainty was most clearly embodied in U.S. President Donald Trump’s speech. His debate over Greenland transcended the mere question of possessing a vast icy island and became a symbol of power politics’ ascendancy over norms. Trump, by stating he would not use force to acquire Greenland, did not offer a legal guarantee but implied that the use of power had become a legitimate option in global politics.

In Europe, a self-critical stance toward the system prevailed, alongside a more defined opposition to Trump. French President Emmanuel Macron explicitly declared Europe’s strategic dependencies unsustainable and elevated the concept of strategic autonomy from a rhetorical slogan to an urgent necessity. Macron’s speech also reflected a growing awareness that Europe’s capacity to act as a decisive player in the global system was steadily diminishing.

Although U.S.-Europe relations remain institutionally intact, the sense of trust and shared threat perception that sustained this structure has clearly weakened. The U.S. increasingly defines security in terms of cost and burden sharing, while European countries struggle to break free from historical reflexes of protection. The difficulty in responding to the frequent calls for dialogue at Davos is precisely a reflection of this growing dissonance within the Western alliance.

The most lucid articulation of this new reality came from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who emphasized the return to great power politics. While Merz acknowledged that the rules-based international order still holds normative value, he openly admitted it no longer possesses credible deterrent power. His approach was interpreted not as a defense of the liberal order but as a realistic shift toward accepting its limits and adapting to new realities.

The most striking speech in terms of long-term implications was delivered by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. Carney openly admitted that the rules-based international order had never functioned entirely fairly, reminding audiences that historically powerful actors had often been exempted from rules when convenient, that trade regimes were not applied equally, and that international law was invoked with varying rigor depending on whether a state was the perpetrator or the victim.

According to Carney, the real problem was that this implicit consensus had become unsustainable. Medium-sized states had long tolerated this contradiction by preserving the facade of democracy and human rights while consciously ignoring the gap between rhetoric and reality. But in the current context of intensifying great power competition, the cost of this silence has grown heavier, and the asymmetries created by the system are becoming increasingly costly for countries like Canada.

Carney’s warning suggests that in a world where U.S. support for the system has receded and medium powers like Canada cannot act in unison, multilateralism will cease to be a functioning order and remain only a repeated rhetorical refrain. In this sense, Carney’s speech transformed Davos’s “dialogue” theme from an abstract wish into one of the most realistic approaches, confronting power asymmetries and openly acknowledging the limits of the current international order.

When read together, all these speeches reveal a clear picture from the 2026 Davos Summit. On one side, efforts are underway to build a new international order; on the other, there is a desperate struggle to sustain the remnants of the old one. Power politics has returned, but this return has not yet settled into a stable or predictable framework. Thus, the Davos Summit once again took place on a ground where no shared vision for the future could be shaped and no clear solutions to global system challenges were offered.

Recent events in Minneapolis cannot be understood as isolated security incidents; they signal a profound rupture in one of the most fundamental assumptions underlying the modern state: the social contract. The legitimacy of the state’s monopoly on violence rests on a minimal consensus among citizens and non-citizens regarding who, when, and within what boundaries this violence may be used. In Minneapolis, we are witnessing the rapid unraveling of this consensus.

One of the foundational pillars of Western political thought, the social contract assumes individuals consent to obey the state in exchange for security. Through this hypothetical agreement, the monopoly on violence is transferred to the state, but this power is not arbitrary. Violence must be bound by law, predictable, and accountable. Otherwise, violence generates fear rather than security. The events unfolding in Minneapolis today reflect precisely this breakdown.

Although operations conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are formally grounded in legal frameworks, on-the-ground practices suggest these frameworks have been effectively suspended. The killing of 37-year-old Alex Pretti, a critical care nurse, by ICE agents has become a powerful symbol of the severed link between the intended target of state violence and its justification, indicating the accelerating erosion of the social contract.

The killing of Alex Pretti gains further weight when viewed in context. Just three weeks earlier in the same city, three-time mother Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent, with no criminal proceedings initiated against the perpetrator. This points to the practical collapse of the accountability pillar of the social contract. The severing of the link between the use of violence and legal boundaries or public oversight mechanisms has also undermined the moral legitimacy of the state.

The most shocking example in Minneapolis is the experience of five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos. While returning home from preschool with his father, he was detained by ICE agents and sent to a prison in Texas. The use of a child as an operational tool—or even, according to allegations, as “bait”—demonstrates not merely a violation of the social contract but its outright inversion.

Therefore, the events in Minneapolis can be seen as a threshold moment signaling the quiet unraveling of the social contract between the modern state and its citizens in the United States. This situation has created a broader sphere of insecurity that now includes even those with full citizenship status. As state violence becomes concentrated on specific groups, the universal character of the social contract is damaged, and security transforms from a shared public value into a selective privilege. The events in Minneapolis raise deeper questions about the future of the relationship between society and the state in the United States.

In recent months, Kazakhstan has faced disruptions in oil exports due to infrastructure problems and mounting financial pressures. A fire at Tengiz, one of the country’s largest energy fields, halted oil production, while damage to the main export route to the Black Sea caused by the Russia-Ukraine War disrupted shipments and led to monthly revenue losses of approximately $1.17 billion.

Amid these developments, the government’s decision to raise the value-added tax from 12% to 16% has revealed how economic burdens are being transferred to society. Taken together, these developments indicate that Kazakhstan’s problems extend beyond energy or budgetary concerns, pointing to a broader governance crisis in which security and economic stability are simultaneously under pressure.

The fact that Ukrainian drones have directly targeted critical infrastructure vital to Kazakhstan’s oil exports further exposes the fragility of its economy. Ukraine continues to regard the main export route to the Black Sea as a legitimate military target, forcing Kazakhstan—despite its non-participation in the conflict—to bear the economic costs of a war it is not involved in.

When the Astana administration responds with strong diplomatic or political measures against these attacks, it risks alienating Western energy companies and investors that hold major stakes in Kazakh infrastructure. Conversely, silence sends a message to both domestic public opinion and international markets that the country cannot guarantee the security of its infrastructure.

The structural inadequacy of alternative export routes perpetuates this squeeze. The slow pace of expanding pipelines to China and the high costs of maritime transport via the Caspian Sea render alternative options practically unviable. Moreover, the resources required to fund these projects directly conflict with reserves needed to defend the currency and maintain fiscal stability.

A similar impasse exists on Kazakhstan’s foreign policy front. After decades under Russian influence, Kazakhstan has sought to distinguish itself by balancing between different power centers. This balancing act was made possible largely by stable revenue flows. Today, however, rising geopolitical risks are making relationships with external actors increasingly fragile.

Thus, what is happening in Kazakhstan is more than an energy or fiscal crisis; it is a process in which state capacity is being tested simultaneously on multiple fronts: infrastructure security, fiscal resilience, foreign policy maneuverability, and societal expectations. Each pressure point may be manageable in isolation, but together they present a significant challenge that makes securing stability through conventional means increasingly difficult.