A middle power moment in a fragmenting world

When, early in October, this writer found himself in Berlin, addressing the question of whether this is a “Middle Power moment”, just a day after External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar had made a speech in Delhi on the same topic, it led to a realisation why this theme has gained renewed salience this year. It began with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney calling, in Davos in January, for the middle powers to collectively address the challenges facing the international system, and persisted with the global recognition that the world is no longer defined solely by the gravitational pull of superpowers, nor by the binary alignments of the Cold War, but by a wider constellation of states. These states neither command the international system nor submit passively to it. Instead, their influence derives from strategic positioning, economic weight, diplomatic agility, and normative ambition.

Middle powers are not easy to define. They are typically characterised by a combination of attributes: significant regional presence and influence, desire for greater relevance, growing economic capabilities, credible diplomatic networks, and the political will to act beyond their immediate neighbourhoods. They are not “great” powers in the traditional sense, but they possess enough weight to matter in global governance, and enough autonomy to pursue independent strategies. Their influence is exercised less through coercion than through coalition-building, agenda-setting, and the ability to act as bridges between different parts of the international system.