Cold

1. Canadian and US interests in the new order
2. European diagnosis and references to The Magic Mountain
3. Euro-Atlantic relations and the urgency of a new global order
   • Détente, renewed norms and new leadership

In an exclusive sanatorium where tuberculosis patients share their deteriorating health and debate their opinions on the decadent European order of the Belle Epoque. The young orphan Hans Castorp declares his love for Madame Chauchat, the beautiful Russian woman with Asian features, to whom fate and illness had led him. An Italian idealist, Settembrini, and another patient, the realist Leo Naphta, disagree on politics and breathe the air of the Alps as a last hope.

In the cold darkness of the snow, disturbed by illness, the friends fight a duel and, so as not to hurt each other, the liberal shoots into the air and the conservative commits suicide. Stephens recounts the scene in his article and uses it to illustrate the frosty relationship between Donald Trump and the Euro-Atlantic allies in Davos, 2026.

The speeches by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and the President of the United States at the prestigious forum coincided in certifying the arrival of a new world order in which competition between the great powers is strengthened and the liberal rules-based order is definitively weakened. However, they disagreed radically in their assessment.

Canadian and US interests in the new order

For Carney, the change in order reflects the interests of the major players, but leaves the intermediate players orphaned, who will have to adapt to the new geostrategic framework through joint action and the assumption of common risks, for which the traditional institutions and agreements between allies are no longer reliable. For Donald Trump, the new order must accept a hierarchical vision that recognises the historical and political debt of allies to the United States and the dominant role of the great power in addressing challenges such as security in the Arctic, the exploitation of strategic resources and the revision of tariffs.

The malaise afflicting the world order has altered the globalising nature of the Davos Forum. And a few days later, Trump threatened Canada with exorbitant tariffs if it maintained preferential trade relations with China. Against the backdrop of Greenland, the tension between the Canadian and US governments highlights the need to rebuild the Euro-Atlantic framework and NATO before Donald Trump's aggressive policy undermines the achievements of decades of shared security, even though this stability has been poorly funded by European allies.

European diagnosis and references to The Magic Mountain

Carney's speech is a diagnosis for tackling European institutional tuberculosis, anchored in the defence of an order that is complacent in its well-being and far removed from entrepreneurial liberalism, now essential for addressing technological innovation/adaptation. And incapable of bringing together a common foreign policy that lumps Hamas terrorism and the democratic government of Israel together and takes Vladimir Putin out of the same bag, as Zelensky denounced at the summit.

But if Thomas Mann had attended Donald Trump's speech in Davos, he probably would not have written The Magic Mountain, or if he had, he would have written it differently. The German novelist's story confirms the decline of old Europe and anticipates the confrontation between Europeans. But those Europeans who were sick of the Belle Epoque did not live in a discourse of hatred as the Europeans of the interwar period would later do.

In The Magic Mountain, published in 1924, Mann attempts to highlight through his characters, who love and forgive each other, that Europe had grown old and sick, but did not hate itself. And therefore, the new order should not be built on hatred but on understanding. This is precisely and unfortunately the opposite of what Lenin and Hitler believed and promoted.

Euro-Atlantic relations and the urgency of a new global order

The cool Euro-Atlantic relationship has not only crystallised at the Davos forum. Finnish President Alexander Stubb, a liberal internationalist with high responsibilities in economic organisations, recently published an article in Foreign Affairs magazine (January 2026) entitled ‘The West's last chance’. Like his Canadian colleague, he warns of the urgency of building a new global order.

From his point of view, as a leader representing a traditionally neutral Nordic country that has become a member of NATO, multilateral negotiation must be present at this moment defined by multipolarity. He contrasts the multilateralism of the Helsinki process, whose geopolitical vision integrated the Euro-Atlantic and Soviet spaces in the détente of 1975, with the multipolar vision of Yalta, which divided territories and spheres of influence in 1945.

Détente, renewed norms and new leadership

The example cannot be extrapolated to this historical moment, which is much more diverse in terms of actors and risks. But the spirit of détente can serve as an example for taking a first step towards building a framework for international coexistence. A scenario that would pave the way for the stabilisation of this new order of powers and strategic actors, developed and limited through renewed or newly created rules, and open to the exchange of interests.

In the case of democracies, depolarised and reinforced with new leadership, coming from the private sector and contributing skills in technological innovation and international management. In the case of Europe, regenerated with efficient politicians, once today's progressive and populist ideologues have been sent to a remote sanatorium to breathe fresh air.