The limits of middle powers

SHORT-TERM, AD HOC COALITIONS CANNOT CRAFT OR DELIVER INTERNATIONAL RULES

- ANITA INDER SINGH

AS MANY COUNTRIES voice displeasure regarding the economically disruptive policies of President Donald Trump, they also search for new ways of cooperating with each other to confront them.Those challenging the US are middle powers and they comprise most of the world’s countries. However, can so many states, geographically non-contiguous and diverse, come together to forma unified force to serve as an effective counterweight to the US and China?

What is a middle power? It is a country that is not a superpower—thus, the range of middle powers across the world is very wide. Their economic strength, measured in terms of GDP and GDP per capita, can vary greatly. The GDPs per capita of small countries like Switzerland ($103,998.2) and Singapore ($96,740 are higher than that of the US ($84,534), but they will never be superpowers.

Larger countries including India, Australia, Japan, South Africa, and Germany have a lower GDP per capita than the US and are all middle powers. However, as Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz told the German Parliament on January 29, it is time to think of Europeans as partners and not subordinates—which is how Trump is treating even the US’ closest allies.

So, when Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney compared faith in the “international rules-based order” at the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, he sought to shock most world leaders out of complacency and to confront the Trump-created crisis in that order.