Description
Drawing on Paltiel and Nossal’s metaphor, middle powers have long served as the ‘flying buttresses’ of the post-war liberal world order, lending structural support to a US-led architecture. Today, however, the liberal vault appears to be on the verge of collapse. The return of Donald Trump to the White House has accelerated this transition, with US foreign policy increasingly shaped by personal whims and transactional impulses. As of late 2025, the emergent Trump Doctrine resembles a patchwork of MAGA-flavoured neo-isolationism, China-focused containment, and selective US primacy, coupled with materially driven unilateralism.
As the global order undergoes profound transformation, middle powers are navigating this turbulent terrain with growing strategic sophistication. Moving beyond a traditional ‘leadership-followership’ paradigm, they are increasingly asserting agency. They are no longer passive adjuncts to great power agendas. Through hedging, flexible alignments, and issue-based coalitions with like-minded countries, these actors are adapting to a fragmented international landscape. This paper argues that middle powers are emerging as the last bastion of stability and principled diplomacy, striving to ensure an orderly transition to a more inclusive and resilient global system.
The paper examines contemporary manifestations of middle power activism, focusing on strategic repositioning and coalition-building among like-minded actors – particularly in minilateral tech cooperation – and assesses their potential for systemic impact. It contends that Group of Middle Powers (GMPs) cooperation is driven not by altruism but by pragmatic and instrumentalist objectives. Whether established or emerging, contemporary middle powers share an imperative to safeguard sustainable development. In response to growing uncertainty, they exhibit a problem-solving orientation that prioritises practical outcomes over normative ideals. The paper investigates how and where GMPs seek to exert influence, and what kinds of symbols, norms, narratives, visions and aspirations they seek to advance to shape global governance.
