Crunch time for the middle powers
How to build public support for a new middle power alliance
Hassan Damluji, March 2025
This is the third of a three-part series on the role middle powers must play to defend the principles of international order in a post-hegemonic age.
In the first article of this series I made the case for why a middle power alliance must be formed to reestablish rules in our international order. In the second I set out what it would take to start creating that alliance in practice. In this final part of the series, I explore how vital public support for such an alliance can be built.
Source: Ted Eytan - 2017.01.21 Women's March Washington, DC USA 00095.
International relations have usually been thought of as a game played by elites, particularly world leaders who have been thought able to get away with a lot of action on the world stage without the public noticing. Some scholars have thought in terms of game theory – the rational choices in front of world leaders. Others have thought in terms of the worldview, prejudices and personal relationships that drive world leaders’ choices. Few have considered the general public as important actors. But that has started to change, and not a moment too soon. Because we are now living in an age where the public is driving geopolitics more than it has done for generations.
It’s certainly true that most voters don’t know much about their country’s role in global affairs. But there are times - most obviously during wars - when the wider public starts to pay a lot more attention to what’s going on outside their borders. Even when countries are not fighting, international relations can sometimes suddenly feel more like everybody’s business. This is one of those times.
Before Brexit, the EU was relatively low on voters’ list of concerns. A large proportion of Americans had never heard of NAFTA until it was torpedoed. USAID was one of America’s least well-known government agencies before it was destroyed. But over this last decade, growing numbers of people have become aware of the funding, the institutions and the diplomacy that have patched together the thin layer of global governance that we have managed to build since the Second World War. Often learning about these efforts from the least reliable of sources, many people have come to associate them with all that is wrong with the world. In short, multilateralism has gone out of fashion – even at Davos. And in a troubled world where conflict seems around the corner, people are increasingly interested in the choices their country makes.
All this means that public permission is a critical factor in enabling the leaders of middle powers to build a credible alliance.
How can that permission be won?
First, we must discard any attempt to sell a new alliance as a utopian attempt to restore multilateralism or build a better world for all of humanity. Some voters might like the idea, others will dislike it, but very few will think it likely to succeed and most simply won’t care.
A middle power alliance must be explained to voters for the benefits it will bring that will make a concrete difference to their day-to-day lives. That means addressing how it will impact voters’ biggest concerns. Let’s take security, inflation, jobs and migration as a start since these are top issues in many middle power countries.
Happily, there is a powerful story to be told in all these areas. Fundamentally, a middle power alliance is about security. Most middle powers have felt happy and protected by the US-led order over recent decades. It is now clear to everyone that that period is over. Across Europe, the Americas, Africa, the Middle East and East Asia, voters are worried because they know that the United States is now not a reliable protector of its allies.
This message has not only reached the elite. The debacle in the White House between Presidents Trump and Zelenskyy was probably the most watched political clip of the year so far, globally. It is not only Europeans who were horrified. The nations of East Asia are now scrambling to figure out who their real friends are. So the central public message from governments building a middle power alliance must be about the need to find as many friends as possible, to ensure security in a dangerous world.
Inflation comes next. We saw how sensitive public opinion was to inflation during the inflationary spike that came with the easing of COVID restrictions and the full-scale war in Ukraine. The trade wars that are being unleashed by the United States will cause more of the same. A middle power alliance can address this by spawning free trade agreements that reduce barriers between allies, just as new barriers are being erected elsewhere. This can have a calming effect on inflation – and voters need to know that.
As for jobs, economic agreements between middle powers can involve investment as well as trade, and a particularly important area of state-driven investment that is urgently needed is in the military. There is a long history of military expenditure creating jobs and uplifting the economy – this is after all the secret to Russia’s economic survival despite draconian sanctions. A middle power alliance can create a similar growth boost alongside the security and trade benefits.
Finally migration. Some potential members of a middle power alliance, especially in the Global South, might want increased migration as part of a deal to closer integrate economies. But for island nations like the UK, Japan and Australia, this would be a non-starter. Instead, it has to be made clear to the public in such countries, where there is a strong popular desire to limiting migration, that a middle power alliance would maintain their sovereignty over this issue. It could even help reduce the disorderly migration that has caused so much political chaos in recent years. For example, the UK public would not quickly accept a return to the EU single market on the condition of free movement of people, but if, in these times of crisis, the EU were prepared to be more imaginative, strengthening trade with the UK without demanding limitless migration, a deal is there to be struck that would have huge popular support. Equally, the biggest driver of illegal migration is conflict, so the determination of a middle power alliance to reduce conflict by preventing predatory behaviour by the giants can be explained precisely as a mechanism to reduce illegal migration.
Building a new global alliance at such a fraught time is asking a lot from voters in the countries involved. In particular, instead of becoming more insular in dangerous times, the idea that each country should make every violation of sovereignty their own business, may seem counterintuitive. But the moment of political crisis is being felt deeply enough to be keenly understood by the public, all over the world. So the opportunity for new thinking is ripe. For it to be seized, it needs to be clearly communicated that the only way that countries as diverse as the UK, Canada, Malaysia and Japan can stay safe, control inflation, provide good jobs and limit illegal migration is by building a broad global alliance of the middle powers.
This is a three-part short essay series on the end of the US-led world order. You can read the first part here and the second part here.