what small – At Davos in January, Canadian PM Mark Carney warned that the international rules-based order risks becoming empty rhetoric. In Estonia, Vikerkaar’s latest issue returns to that anxiety, tracing how big powers break rules while rephrasing them, and asking what
In January, the conversation in Davos carried a bitter familiarity. Canadian PM Mark Carney compared the international rules-based order to “communism in 1970s Czechoslovakia”—“little more than a set of slogans long devoid of meaning.” His warning came with a simple question of survival: to avoid a world where. as Thucydides wrote. “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. ” less powerful countries have to face the reality instead of clinging to idealistic language.
In Estonia, that call lands close to history. The latest issue of Vikerkaar doesn’t treat Carney’s warning as distant geopolitics. It reads the liberal order’s language against the lived experience of being a pawn. and it asks what’s left when the slogans fail—then follows the more uncomfortable question: what kind of power small states need to endure whatever replaces the old promises.
Estonia’s past makes the pattern legible. Readers recall how the Soviet Union interfered in states it considered to be within its “sphere of interest”—in Hungary in 1956 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968. But the issue widens the lens beyond the USSR. It also points to U.S. interference in its “near abroad,” spanning Guatemala (1954), Brazil (1964), Chile (1973), and Nicaragua in the 1980s.
The liberal order, then, has never been pure. International relations scholar Tiina Pajuste argues that hypocrisy doesn’t automatically turn the system into fiction. Even when rules are broken. it is “generally not done simply by publicly denouncing the rules of international relations. but by re-interpreting or re-phrasing them.” From this view. “the rules-based order cannot be considered a failure.” The tension is sharper than the word “failure” suggests: the rules persist. but they can be bent so tightly that smaller states feel the cost long before anyone admits the bend.
That cost is central to Karl Lembit Laane’s argument as well. Looking back at egregious violations of international law during George W. Bush’ presidency. Laane argues that Donald Trump’s presidency reveals an “embarrasing truth”: that the “selective application of international law” bothers most politicians in the West. including in Estonia. only after they become “its next potential victims.” His conclusion is blunt. Giving in to great power politics and aligning openly with one of the players is a bad idea. because none of the big players has proved to be a reliable partner.
Laane’s prescription tries to pull the conversation away from helplessness. He endorses Carney’s proposal to empower the European Union as a bloc that prioritizes democracy and international law. Yet the issue also refuses to let that remain comforting. The EU is “a long way away” from fulfilling such a role, Laane argues. Instead. his answer is federation—because only that path. he says. would allow the EU to become an actor strong enough. politically. technologically. and militarily. to hold its own against an illiberal alliance.
The magazine turns from Europe’s structures to Greenland’s lessons, and the geography becomes a mirror for small-state endurance. Mart Kuldkepp asks what Greenland’s history offers nations such as Estonia. Greenland’s push for decolonization and Estonia’s emergence from colonial rule in 1918 become examples not of how slogans win. but of how self-determination has to be enacted. In practice, Kuldkepp stresses, it demands expertise, capacity, and often military force.
Even full independence, his text warns, would not end the hard questions. It still leaves issues of “economic sustainability. administrative capacity. transport infrastructure. energy. budgeting. security and relations with Denmark and the US.” The outcome. he writes. will determine whether the right to self-determination can be institutionalized and made permanent “under extremely asymmetrical circumstances.”.
The material stakes are spelled out. Greenland relies on subsidies from Copenhagen—“to the tune of 4.5 billion kroner.” Climate change and the discovery of new natural resource deposits also shape what autonomy can practically mean. In that context. the question becomes not only constitutional but daily life: “what part of Greenland’s habitual way of life can be preserved” and what would have to be replaced.
Greenland, like Estonia before it, is also not navigating an empty room. Many other powers have designs on the region, and Greenland must diplomatically manage them. The issue emphasizes the scale of the mismatch: Greenland’s administrative capacity is “of a small European town. ” with an island population around 56k. Liberal values and democratic aspirations, it argues through these facts, need grounding in real resources and power.
The same logic returns in a different costume in Jan-Werner Müller’s section. where comparisons are drawn between Donald Trump’s far-right populism and European versions. “most notably in Hungary. ” where Viktor Orbán was just voted out of power. Müller sketches connections, and the details feel less like ideology and more like governance.
The Trump administration, he says, has attempted to copy the Orbán playbook and has only been partially successful. “Overall. I think we’re seeing a pattern that is pretty similar. ” Müller tells editor Aro Velmet. “but what might be different is that the US right now still seems to lack personnel for doing things in a very systematic way.” He points to earlier Orbán efforts: going back to 2010–2011. Orbán said he was going to create a new national system. Even if it didn’t completely succeed. Müller argues. Orbán had resources—“experienced administrators” and people with ambitions—and it still “took a fair while” to work out how to transform universities into foundations “with a view to capturing and subordinating them.”.
Put side by side. the issue’s moving parts create a single pressure: when big powers break rules while rephrasing them. and when international law is applied selectively until victims look like potential victims. the promise of protection through language alone stops working. The question becomes whether small states can build capacities that outlast the slogans—through federation in Europe. through self-determination grounded in expertise and force. and through understanding how systems of influence can be engineered by leaders with time. staff. and institutional access.
In the end, Vikerkaar’s latest issue doesn’t offer an escape from the fear that Carney named in Davos. It does something sharper. It keeps asking what survival requires once the rhetoric loses its meaning, and it refuses to treat that as abstract. For places like Estonia—and for a Greenland where autonomy collides with subsidies. climate pressures. and external ambitions—the debate is never only about ideals. It’s about what can be funded. administered. defended. and sustained when the rules are no longer the only language the world listens to.
Davos Mark Carney rules-based order Estonia Vikerkaar Tiina Pajuste Karl Lembit Laane European Union federation Greenland decolonization Viktor Orbán Donald Trump Jan-Werner Müller Aro Velmet international law geopolitics