Can Middle Powers Gel?

Some signs point toward middle power equivocation rather than mutual commitment. In the wake of Trump’s imposition of sweeping tariffs last year, practically all states acted individually rather than collectively, genuflecting to make trade deals that often put them at a disadvantage. Much of the world also reacted rather tamely to Washington’s manifold travel bans and walkouts from institutions such as the World Health Organization and UNESCO. The global south has been diffident on condemning Russia’s annexation of parts of Ukraine. And many members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have been muted on China’s maritime intrusions.

Look more carefully however, and a quiet pushback is underway. Contours of a new global order are becoming dimly visible in the fog. These early efforts, led mostly by middle powers, are focused on trade diversification, autonomous regional security-building, and better leveraging domestic natural resources for national benefit. If these trends continue, the resulting reshaped order could be a complex set of interlocking dynamics—more bottom-up than top-down. Middle powers would be at the heart of such an assemblage.

But for these early efforts to mature, three major challenges will need to be overcome: the accidents of geography, the resurgent north-south divide, and the paucity of leadership.

Geography matters hugely in geopolitics. On the world map, great powers are dispersed across Asia, Europe, and North America rather than being clustered next to one another. Middle powers are additionally located in Africa.

This “tossed salad” geography has certain geopolitical effects. Former U.S. House Speaker Tip O’Neill’s famous quip that “all politics is local” translates, at least in part, to international politics. Proximity is a major driver of security choices. It can prompt bandwagoning, for example, whether under severe pressure (for example, post-Maduro Venezuela’s recent tilt toward the United States) or with strong inducements (Mexico joining NAFTA).

But more commonly, a great power’s neighbors look to balance, or at least hedge, against it. Balancing strategies, when adopted, typically involve a preferential relationship with another great power rather than with distant middle powers (e.g., deepening U.S.-India ties to counter China). In sum, asymmetries of geography create differentiated threat perceptions among middle powers, acting as a barrier to deeper geopolitical alignments among themselves.

The north-south divide may be the biggest barrier to strong middle power coalitions. Global south states gained their hard-won independence after a traumatic period of resource extraction and other forms of exploitation by colonial powers. This tragic history was foundational to the north-south divide. In the first three or four decades after World War II, global south states rallied around the causes of economic equity and nonalignment. These were the heydays of the G-77 and the Non-Aligned Movement. Demands for redistributive justice peaked in the push for a “new international economic order” (NIEO) at the United Nations in 1974.

During the period of post-Cold War unipolarity, most global south states abandoned NIEO-type rhetoric and embraced globalization and, less overtly, U.S. global leadership. The north-south divide seemed to be losing traction, albeit on terms set by Washington.

But then the disastrous U.S.-led global war on terrorism and “Made in America” financial crisis marked the beginning of the end of unipolarity, in the backdrop of climate change and pandemics and, more recently, artificial intelligence emerging as critical global issues. As unipolarity began to wane, and a set of middle powers in the global south rose, north-south debates reemerged in force.

Middle powers of the south objected to the north’s watering down of the common but differentiated responsibilities principle on climate change, felt betrayed by the hoarding of vaccines during the most dangerous phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, and resisted what they considered to be intrusive demands from the global north on adopting democracy.

However, the global north’s middle powers have long argued for a universal set of values under the liberal international order framework. They attribute the continuing developmental lag in most global south states to poor domestic governance. “Good governance” and “anti-corruption” have been the north’s watchwords in dealing with developing countries, further entrenching a divide between the two blocs.

Middle powers of the north and south also differ sharply on whether to consider climate change a security issue. As Washington abandons climate action, updated scientific assessments are only getting grimmer. And links between climate change and social instability and conflict, while complex, are becoming clearer. In response, most northern middle powers are in favor of securitizing climate change. But key middle powers such as Brazil and India critique the scientific findings and oppose de-emphasizing the developmental and equity dimensions of climate action. They also worry that climate security conversations could open the door for a new type of northern interventionism.

Additionally, many developing countries still rely on fossil fuels. Europe is implementing sharp cuts in climate finance, amid an overall pullback in foreign aid by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. And, as if rubbing salt into the wound, climate action is arguably being used as a cover for trade protectionism with the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. The mechanism fuses two areas that have been historically disaggregated: carbon emissions and international trade. The EU’s market size and regulatory strength have enabled it to try to bind global south states into adopting a set of unilateral rules governing this space. The mechanism also disregards the global north’s disproportionate responsibility for global warming.

International migration is another dividing line between north and south. Even as the north benefits from immigrant workers, economic and cultural anxieties have fueled far-right parties, especially in Europe. These parties, which have no particular interest in engaging the global south, are now close to power in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Attitudes toward migration have also shifted more recently in Australia, Canada, and Japan. These trends impede closer collaboration with major labor-exporting states in the south.

Middle powers of the south would also have noted that Carney’s speech came in the wake of a major ramp-up of U.S. threats to annex Greenland, a Danish territory. These threats invoked tough reactions in Canada and Europe. But shortly before, after Washington attacked Venezuela and seized its president, Nicolás Maduro, Canada, Germany, Japan, and the U.K. were far less critical of the United States and its flagrant violation of international law. This suggests that if the next U.S. president were to seek a new modus vivendi with core U.S. allies, the global north’s current enthusiasm for a middle power coalition could easily lose steam.

Finally, whether today’s middle power leadership is up to the grueling task of coalition-building—and coalition maintenance—remains an open question. This is also true for smaller, issue-based coalitions; these relate to the “variable geometry” Carney spoke of at Davos. We live in a world of hypernationalism, and global south states are no exception.

Politics is more inward-looking than it has been for a long time. Middle power leaders don’t have much capacity to think beyond transactional wins, let alone build long-term coalitions that are truly order-making. A critical mass of forward-looking leaders spanning north and south will be needed for a durable new order that can gain domestic support and defeat any divide-and-rule strategies adopted by the great powers.

Modi poses for a photo with European Council President António Costa (left) and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen before a meeting in New Delhi on Jan. 27.Sajjad Hussain/AFP via Getty Images)