Toronto Star: Jonathan Berkshire Miller, a principal at Pendulum Geopolitical Advisory, said Carney’s intentions and ambition are “noble and right” but he is moving at such a fast pace it’s hard to evaluate where progress is really being made. He said the prime minister’s real focus remains on Europe — and Carney’s trip to Ireland detracts from his Asia goals. Carney, the former central banker, has become a bit of a “philosopher king” on foreign policy but may fail to appreciate some of the trade-offs of geopolitics, he said.
“Middle powers all have different interests,” he said, and the “Carney shtick” in the Davos speech, and his later Yerevan speech “where he said the future of the rules-based order is going to be decided in Europe” doesn’t cut it in the Indo-Pacific. “On foreign policy, they (Indo-Pacific leaders) have been very pragmatic for a long time,” and while the “pragmatic part of Carney” appeals to them, when it comes to the idea of Carney as “the voice on the U.S.”, countries like Japan, Korea and “probably the Philippines to an extent” are “wary of that sort of approach,” said Berkshire Miller. “They’re frustrated about the Trump administration too, but their bread is buttered on the U.S. security side.”…