The great power competition currently underway has created space for second-tier states, or middle powers, to emerge as strong as ever. Alarmed by the growing disruptions to the post-World War II order and what they see as the inability of greater powers to manage the international system, regional actors such as Turkey, Indonesia, Kazakhstan and Australia will begin to play larger geopolitical roles as the U.S. struggles to contain the likes of Russia, China and Iran.
Kazakhstan is particularly noteworthy. Last week, I presented at a conference organized by the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies in Astana on this very topic. Kazakhstan doesn’t just see itself as a middle power; it sees itself as a potential leader in the global conversation over what it means to be a middle power. This is no small feat for a country that has existed for only 30 or so years.
As the conference proceeded, the government announced elsewhere that it would not apply for membership in the BRICS – essentially a club led by China and Russia meant to counterbalance the West. A spokesperson for President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev explained that Astana was more interested in focusing its energy on reforming the United Nations so that middle powers would have a greater role in the premier international organization. In his keynote address at the conference, the president said Russia was an “invincible” military power that would force a negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine. Tokayev warned that if a diplomatic solution to the conflict was not found, it would turn into a “war of mutual extermination.”
The president’s remarks were telling, if not altogether unusual. Kazakhstan is trying to navigate between Russia, its former imperial overlord with which it shares a 4,750-mile-long border, and the West. By spurning the BRICS for the U.N., Astana is committing itself to the global system as constructed by the United States. But by standing against continued Western military support for the war in Ukraine, it is signaling that it is not entirely in Washington’s camp. This is hardly surprising for a country that practically invented the notion of a multivector foreign policy. Hence Astana’s cozy relationship with China, which is trying to claim for itself the influence Russia is losing in Central Asia.
This kind of balancing act is typical of all middle powers. They lack the geopolitical heft of great powers, but they have the political and economic influence great powers need to advance their interests. Middle powers try to leverage this position to shape the behavior of great powers in an effort to pursue their strategic objectives. But they arguably have never been so potentially influential. After the Soviet Union collapsed, the bipolar era came to an end as the U.S. emerged as the world’s sole superpower, a status it will maintain for the foreseeable future. The United States’ 20-year response to the 9/11 attacks gave Russia an opportunity to rise from the ashes, even as China emerged as a great power and competitor to the U.S. Many argue that the world has since become increasingly multipolar, and that the rise of middle powers only furthers this trend. The problem is that not all poles are the same. The war in Ukraine has exposed Russian weaknesses, despite its large military force and massive defense production capacity. Meanwhile, China is a geo-economic force, even if not a military one, but its domestic economic problems suggest it isn’t the power it’s made out to be.
The U.S. has challenges of its own. But it remains the center of gravity of the international system because of its hard and soft power projection capabilities. Cognizant of the global landscape and the revisionist nature of Russian and Chinese ambitions, the middle powers will seek safety in the Western-led global order, despite its many flaws. There are, of course, many different types of middle powers, but their desire to have a stake in the international system will help the U.S. deal with its adversaries.
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