Open this photo in gallery: Delegates look on as former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak (left) speaks with PBS correspondent Nick Schifrin at the 2023 Halifax International Security Forum in Halifax on Nov. 18.Kelly Clark/The Canadian Press This year’s edition of the Halifax International Security Forum attempted to strike a jaunty, defiant note: aware of the threat to the democracies posed by the forces of militant autocracy – China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, memorably collated as the CRINKs – yet confident in the ability of the democracies to recognize and respond to the threat in time. There was, nevertheless,...