Middle Powers: An Intellectual Framework

When tracking the dramatic changes occurring in the international system, all eyes fixate on the fierce competition between Washington and Beijing. While this is understandable, appreciation for the changing global order cannot be complete without acknowledging a collection of influential countries gaining in prominence and potential. This group, the “middle powers,” is carving out a consequential place in an increasingly divided world. Standing amid – and apart from – the great powers of the United States and China, these countries are challenging the idea of a unipolar or bipolar international system. By leveraging their willingness and ability to work with multiple partners simultaneously, these powers are crafting unique strategies to advance their national interests, to influence global issues, and ultimately to shape today’s evolving international order. 

The Middle Powers Project of Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, in collaboration with the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, is rigorously examining these countries in recognition of their growing importance in today’s shifting international system. The project combines a historical and theoretical basis with the timeliest scholarly and policy-facing insights, drawing on original research that includes case studies written by renowned experts on each country. 

A group of emergent countries that seek to maintain their distinction from the great powers that dominate global politics is not new. During the Cold War, such countries were referred to as the Non-Aligned Movement. This grouping was often vocal on global issues, but its members were marginal players that rarely affected the U.S.-Soviet showdown or how the world dealt with international issues in that environment.

Today, however, the term Non-Aligned Movement does not do justice to these middle powers. While their desire to stand apart from great powers is familiar, their recognizable influence on the international order warrants a new framing and definition. Middle powers today aspire to shape global issues, especially where they see the great powers as relinquishing their roles, and in some cases have the capacity to do so. In short, the evolving international order demands a fresh and more precise examination of these middle powers and an appreciation of how their statecraft can and will influence the increasingly fluid and fragmented world. 

The term “middle power” can be used in many ways. However, this project applies the term very intentionally to:

• A country that has placed itself geopolitically between the United States and China without being entirely formally committed to either;
• A country with a political economy making it relevant to the regional economic and security situation; and
• A country with a recognizable stake in a range of global issues – such as technological innovation, the energy transition, global trade and investment, and security partnerships—and the capacity to influence one or more of these issues at a regional or global level.

Middle powers are diverse in their populations, geographies, economic bases, and strategic cultures. But their growing geopolitical weight is not just a reflection of GDP, population size, or advantageous geography; rather it is a reflection of a growing propensity to weigh in on regional and global issues and a growing ability to influence outcomes. Even though middle powers are not a coherent bloc and hold widely varying positions on key global issues, they frequently exert influence through fluid coalitions, whose composition varies from issue to issue. These powers, unlike yesterday’s Non-Aligned Movement, are not content merely to retreat from the growing polarization of the world or stay out of the way of the United States and China as they wrestle with one another. Instead, these countries are forming issue-based and broader partnerships to address problems that once galvanized multilateral cooperation, but are increasingly neglected thanks to U.S.-China discord. 

Middle powers have shaped outcomes in global climate negotiations; they are taking independent stances on conflicts like Ukraine and Gaza; they pursue sources of energy and weapons outside great power alliances; and they are resisting pressures from the United States and China to “pick sides.” China and the United States appear to recognize their increasing clout by seeking to prevent middle powers from aligning with the other great power. What remains to be seen, however, is whether the activism of these middle powers provides them sufficient heft to decisively impact the new global order. Are these countries able to substitute for large powers that no longer show an interest or ability to manage emerging global challenges? 

The thirteen case studies of different middle powers—some of which are being released today—already suggest some important takeaways. Today’s middle powers:

• Offer a new model for building partnerships in the 21^st century. They appear most interested in—and adept at—building a fluid set of partnerships, each one often organized around a single or small set of issues or interests. Because the issues tackled are different, and the capabilities and interests of the countries vary, these alliances are flexible, not mutually exclusive, and are pragmatic as opposed to ideological.
• Are filling the gap. In some instances, these countries and the flexible alliances they build have the ability to tackle—or at least alter the trajectory of – global problems in the face of great power indifference or incapacitation. Moreover, their growing clout means they could operate as impediments or accelerants to the objectives of the great powers and therefore draw greater attention from Beijing and Washington. In some cases, they might even shape the character of U.S.-China competition itself—intensifying it by seeking to draw benefits from both sides, or moderating it by serving as a diplomatic or economic bridge.
• Provide a push toward multipolarity, with one important caveat. The world was for decades effectively a bipolar order that, for a time, gave way to a unipolar one. These countries and their activism are providing a remarkable impetus to multipolarity in today’s global politics. This observation, however, needs to be coupled with a clear caution that this trend toward multipolarity may be compromised by the growing pressures associated with the technological competition between the United States and China. The nature of technological change may ultimately force countries that have remained adamantly above the fray into either the U.S. or the Chinese camp, attenuating the centrifugal forces bearing down on the world order today.
• May be the least likely but loudest defenders of the receding liberal international order. Many of these countries have long criticized an international system that they did not design and that seemed to exert enormous pressure on them. Today, many of these countries feel the loss of an order that was based on rule of law and open economies, lamenting how great powers no longer seem constrained by the norms and institutions that reigned supreme for the last 80 years. Middle powers may be unanticipated advocates for the status quo, rather than for radical change.

The magnitude and characteristics of middle power influence in the coming era remain to be seen. Yet there is sufficient evidence of this influence—both actual and aspirational—to make clear that no one hoping to understand the world of the next decades can ignore this diverse and ambitious set of states. The United States and China, while central, are not the only games in town.

The first phase of the Middle Powers Project includes original studies of thirteen middle powers being published in Fall 2025 and Spring 2026: Brazil, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam. In 2026, the project will also publish further original research to expand understanding of this vital phenomenon in an evolving world.