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Jan 20, 2026  Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney gave a show-stopper speech to the World Economic Forum announcing that the Rule-Based International Order (RBIO), established at the Bretton Wood Conference in 1944, had now collapsed--largely as a result of unilateral actions by the Trump II Administration. Carney's recommendation was that the Middle Powers (the Core Countries in the World-System) unite against the Hegemonic Leader (the US) to recreate the RBIO and resist Hegemonic Bullying.

Carney's essential argument is that the RBIO never functioned as intended, worked to the advantage of the Hegemon rather than the World-System and had to be reformed. Carney's speech raises so many questions, a few of which are:

• What exactly was the RBIO?
• How did the RBIO really function?
• Did the RBIO have measurable objectives? 
• Were those the right objectives and how close did the RBIO come to meeting them?
• How could the RBIO be reformed or is the World-System now simply at the mercy of naked Great Power Politics?
• etc., etc.

This blog investigates these are any other questions related to the RBIO and to Geopolitics in the World-System.