Tag Archive for: middle power

India has arrived

Last month, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that the first official foreign visit of the commission in her second term would be to India. On the same day, Marco Rubio held his first bilateral meeting as US Secretary of State with India’s minister of external affairs, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day visit to Washington last week confirmed his country’s rising international profile. The visit ended with the promise of what Modi called a United States-India ‘mega partnership’. As part of that partnership, he has committed to double trade with the US by 2030, increase oil and gas imports and expand US military sales to India.

India is the world’s most populous country, home to more than 1.4 billion people with a median age of 29.8 years, compared to 38.9 in the United States, 40.2 in China and 44.5 in the European Union. This massive and relatively young population, together with a large and fast-growing information and communications technology sector, is supporting an economic boom: India is now the fastest-growing major economy, with the International Monetary Fund forecasting a 6.5 percent increase in GDP this year. India is expected to overtake Japan and Germany to become the world’s third-largest economy by 2030.

Despite its vast potential, India has long been overlooked by the West, both economically and geopolitically. But a fundamental global realignment is now underway. The US’s unipolar moment has given way to an era of great-power competition that, unlike during the Cold War, features demands by emerging and developing economies for a more inclusive and representative multilateral system. In this multipolar age, both the US and Europe see India—a neutral foreign-policy actor and dynamic emerging economy—as vital to the future of their strategic priorities.

A founder of the Non-Aligned Movement, India has plenty of experience navigating precarious moments in world affairs. During the Cold War, it skilfully balanced its policies toward the US and the Soviet Union. When it engaged with the Soviet Union—from which it received considerable military assistance—it calibrated its approach to offset US support of Pakistan, without taking sides in the great-power competition.

India has since maintained this pragmatic balancing act, adapting its foreign policy to a shifting geopolitical landscape. Today, that means recognising its potential to shape global affairs, including by playing a leading role in building an efficient, realistic and inclusive multilateralism.

This is reflected in Modi’s pursuit of a more assertive, internationalist foreign policy. Beyond building new partnerships and strengthening old ones, Modi has sought to increase India’s influence in traditional and emerging multilateral fora. In 2023 alone, India held the presidency of both the G20 and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (a Chinese creation, comprising nine Middle Eastern and Asian countries).

Moreover, India plays a leading role in the BRICS, which, in addition to Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, now includes Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. India’s approach to the BRICS is characteristically nuanced: whereas Russia and, to a significant extent, China see themselves as disruptors of the existing order, India views itself as a reformer. This enables it to maintain strategic flexibility as it advances its economic and diplomatic interests.

India’s relationship with China is complicated by other factors. While the countries work together in some fora, they are also locked in protracted territorial disputes and a competition for leadership in the so-called Global South. And India’s growing global clout—including its appeal to Western powers—stems in large part from its ability to act as a counterweight to China. The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor was designed as an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative and reflects India’s centrality to global supply chains.

India is also indispensable to the Quad alliance with Australia, Japan and the US—a grouping that is officially focused on maritime security and economic cooperation, though its members clearly seek to provide a buffer against China in the Indo-Pacific region. It is thanks to India—a rising ‘Southern’ power—that the Quad is not viewed as just another Western vehicle.

Modi has sought to bolster India’s Southern credentials, including by highlighting its status as the ‘mother of democracy’. By framing democracy as intrinsic to Indian civilisation, rather than a colonial legacy, he has aligned India with the middle powers that are now seeking to redefine global governance on their own terms.

To be sure, India has experienced a decisive shift since Modi became prime minister in 2014. He has moved India away from the secular and pluralistic values that had flourished after independence, in favour of an assertive Hindu nationalism. So many international indices have downgraded India’s democratic status that he is now seeking to create his own.

But Modi—the second leader of independent India (after Jawaharlal Nehru) to be elected to three consecutive terms—remains a dominant force in Indian politics, as recent regional election results affirmed. And at a time of rapid geopolitical change, he is committed to leveraging his position, and India’s profound strengths, to turn India into a global player.

India has long had the potential to be an active shaper of international affairs. It has now arrived.

Middle powers and the art of the deal

The week of Donald Trump’s return to the White House may seem like an odd time to emphasise the growing strength and agency of non-Western middle powers such as India, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Mexico. After all, Trump declared in his inaugural address that ‘America will reclaim its rightful place as the greatest, most powerful, most respected nation on earth, inspiring the awe and admiration of the entire world’, before announcing that the United States would ‘take back’ the Panama Canal.

But after three weeks of traveling in Asia, which included many conversations with academics, government officials, tour guides and hotel staff, it is clear that much of the rest of the world is decentring the US. Of course, many of the people I spoke to have strong opinions about the US: some admire the country and its new president, while others could barely contain their contempt. Overall, however, they were more concerned with how their own country fits into a complicated world than with what the US will or will not do.

Ironically, the Trump administration may well accelerate the shift toward a global order in which many countries feel freer to flex their muscles. In Trump’s vision of the world, he and the leaders of other great powers—those known for their nuclear, military, economic or strategic might—can determine the course of future events by cutting deals with no regard for the opinions of neighbouring states or for international rules and norms. At the same time, Trump sees very little value in fighting other peoples’ wars. He would prefer to talk loudly and brandish big tariffs, before sitting down to negotiate.

This thoroughly transactional perspective casts a different light on the sources of national power in the twenty-first century. In a world of deals, what matters most is bargaining power: the ability to compel other countries to reach agreements that serve your interests. And in such a world, it turns out that middle powers have plenty of advantages, even when they are considerably smaller, poorer and militarily weaker than traditional great powers.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when countries could use force with impunity, power was a function of military and economic might, which in turn depended on territory and population size, the availability of natural and human resources and the ability to extract and harness them for government purposes. Great powers used their armies and markets to create spheres of influence where they could intervene almost without limit.

But in today’s world of ‘multi-alignment’, as India calls it, middle powers can reach agreements with great powers and with one another for different purposes. India can bargain with Japan, Australia and the US for enhanced security, with Russia for oil and gas, and with Singapore and other countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations for green energy. Trump’s mantra of America First suits the middle powers just fine, as it allows them to follow a similar model.

As the Harvard economist Dani Rodrik has highlighted, middle powers want to be able to create shifting coalitions. Many of these countries are members of BRICS+, a self-described informal group that began with Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (after which the group is named). It has since expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia, with Turkey, Thailand and Malaysia applying for membership. Above all, the organisation is a vessel for ad hoc alliances—a way for members to increase their collective bargaining power within traditional Western-led institutions.

Trade among BRICS+ members is growing fast. Moreover, the UAE, Iran and Indonesia, as well as new BRICS+ partners Nigeria and Kazakhstan, are all major or mid-size oil producers and exporters. If Saudi Arabia, which is still assessing its membership, decides to join, a sizable contingent of OPEC countries could hold meetings on the sidelines of BRICS+ summits. The question for the Kingdom, a G20 country seeking to broker important Middle East and East-West deals, is whether membership would increase or decrease its bargaining power.

Some observers dismiss BRICS+ as the twenty-first-century equivalent of the G77, a coalition at the United Nations of non-aligned countries that was created in 1964. But while the non-aligned sought power by banding together, the multi-aligned can make use of a wide range of formal and informal ties to enhance their individual or plurilateral bargaining power with the US, China, the European Union and others.

The most powerful asset in any negotiation is the ability to walk away from the table. This depends on what alternative dispute-resolution experts call a BATNA, the party’s ‘best alternative to a negotiated agreement’. Middle powers are building alternatives to agreements negotiated on what they see as Western terms.

Four years ago, former US President Joe Biden focused his inaugural speech on restoring and strengthening democracy at home and abroad. He set out to build a global democratic bloc to counter the rise of autocracy, although he modified his position over the course of his presidency to include non-democracies with which the US had to do business. Call it ‘Democracies+’.

Trump invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to his inauguration, to signal his commitment to diplomatic engagement—by which he means negotiation. This week, Trump announced his intent to be a ‘peacemaker and a unifier’, to end wars and prevent new ones from beginning. He wants above all to win, and keep winning, but through deals, not arms.

In such an environment, the hardest bargainer is king. Many countries will be eager to come to the table, bolstered by the power to walk away when the proposed deal is not to their liking. Rather than a unipolar or multipolar system, this world resembles nothing less—and nothing more—than a bazaar.

Reader response: Australia as a pivotal power

Australian peacekeepers in East Timor, 2002.In thinking about whether Australia is a middle or pivotal power, Damien Kingsbury asks the best question: what would happen if Australia were to disappear? Andrew Davies provides an intelligent, thought-provoking response but I think he understates the impact of Australia’s hypothetical absence from the international community.

Davies rightly points out Australia’s pivotal roles in intelligence cooperation and stabilisation/disaster relief operations in the region but, at the risk of extending the thought experiment too far, there are at least three other areas where I think Australia’s absence would have significant consequences: multilateral forums, trade and overseas development assistance.

Especially in the past year, Australia has proven its central role in several of the world’s major forums, the best example of which is its leadership role on regulating small arms. Not only was it an Australian that chaired the final Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty—leading to the first international treaty on the issue—but it was under Australia’s presidency that a historic Security Council Resolution was passed on the same issue. It’s always hard to argue a counter-factual but it’s equally difficult to imagine such progress without the concerted effort that Australia has made on this issue. Read more

Reader response: size, the elusive variable

Ramesh Thakur once said that size is an elusive variable. So I commend Anthony Bergin for re-opening the debate about Australia’s middle power status and position on the world stage.

As I’ve written elsewhere, the ‘middle power’ label has waxed and waned in Australian foreign policy discussions for over 60 years. But this is still a debate worth having, because although the academic world has largely moved on from talking about middle powers in the international system, countries such as South Korea, Indonesia, Turkey and Mexico are now engaged actively in discussions about how second-tier states can and should respond to the shifts in global power relativities.

And there are new steps being taken to formalise the role of the middle powers in international forums. For Anthony, the establishment of the MITKA grouping in the margins of the UN General Assembly as a coordinating mechanism for middle powers undersells Australia’s key economic and political strengths and therefore diminishes our potential diplomatic clout as a more significant ‘pivotal’ power. Read more

Reader response: is Australia a pivotal power?

Judging by his output, ASPI’s Anthony Bergin likes nothing more than to test ideas in relation to Australia’s strategic positioning. His recent proposition that Australia is not so much a ‘middle power’ but a ‘pivotal power’ is a case in point.

Bergin’s argument is that the common strategic descriptor for Australia as a ‘middle power’ doesn’t accurately reflect its military size or capability, the size of its economy or its strategic reach. In each of these he is correct.

However, the term ‘pivotal power’ is complex and has some existing meaning. One understanding has it meaning more than just being relatively strategically strong. One such approach defines it not as a quantitative assessment of strategic power but as being a geographic arbiter. Read more