With seeds of discontent about security and the economy spreading globally, it is difficult to find grounds for optimism about international affairs. Consider these developments:

1. Western leadership, notably U.S. resolve, is wobbling on almost every issue other than climate change, where the Paris accord demonstrated that aspirations without verifiable commitments inevitably provide scope for consensus. The 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, however, is a historical reminder of its limitations.

2. Some observers suggest that the United States may be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Americans are angry about dysfunction in Washington, concerned about stagnant middle-class incomes and fearful of the threat from both terrorism and gun killings on the home front. Instead of leadership, they receive sermons from the White House – articulate, perhaps even cerebral, but disconnected from the national mood. And not much of a counter to the bombast from Donald Trump, whose opinion-poll numbers move up almost daily no matter how “unhinged” his comments may be.

3. As conditions in Syria spiral steadily downward, the battle against the Islamic State careens sporadically. Increased commitments from allies other than Canada are constrained by internal religious strife in the region, Russian incursions and erratic restrictions on Western military tactics.

4. Wily Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov asserts his country’s pride of place in Syria, crafting a political fig leaf for UN Security Council approval – a road map with no clear destination, one that masks conflicting military ambitions on the ground but demonstrates notably that Vladimir Putin’s Russia is now being courted, not shunned. The Russian President continues to mock the West by remaining intransigent against Ukraine, sensing that Europe will eventually buckle; and by intensifying Russia’s military role in Syria, not against IS but against opponents of his client, President Bashar al-Assad. The clash with Turkey signals the highly inflammable potential lurking in the Middle East. Russia’s economy, meanwhile, sinks further, along with the steep decline in energy prices.

5. The refugee deluge swamping Europe is tearing apart its social and political fabric. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States continue to ignore the calamity, while those less financially endowed – Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon – bear the immediate brunt of the social upheaval.

6. The Islamic State’s tentacles are spreading daily into Libya, Yemen, North Africa, Nigeria and Afghanistan. Far from being contained, the appeal of its global jihad is growing, along with its ever-more pervasive threat.

7. China’s economy is starting to sputter. While China and India deftly avoided any hard commitments on climate change in Paris, their urban centres are choking on the more immediate ravages of smog.

The fundamental global problem is that, when the United States is unable or unwilling to lead, there is no real alternative. German Chancellor Angela Merkel may be Time’s Person of the Year, but her open-ended welcome for refugees is creating political havoc in Germany and may jeopardize her political career.

Henry Kissinger once observed that the lesson of history is that “rigidity and petrification are the first symptoms of decline, a decline in the ability, moral and physical to shape surrounding circumstances.” That decline is much in evidence these days.

In an ocean of global turbulence, Canada bobs like a cork, stepping up its intake of refugees while stepping down from a combat role against IS. We seek a “warmer relationship” with the United States but have no clear definition of what we hope to achieve. We stood out in Paris with our global aspirations. Serious thought must now be given to the economic consequences of what we agreed to, not just for our resource-based economy, but for the economy as a whole.

Geography offers a sanctuary of sorts for Canada but our global role ultimately rests on our relevance and our capacity for influence. In a harsher, unsettled world, one with haphazard Western leadership, we will need to defend our interests, our security and our prosperity more strategically and nimbly.

When it comes to global influence we may be a bit player but, against an existential terrorist threat, our G7 stature warrants that our “bit” should be more than passive. Neither nostalgic sentiments nor fuzzy platitudes will gain us much traction.