When Mark Carney stepped to the podium at the Davos World Economic Forum on 20 January 2026, few expected a Canadian prime minister to deliver a speech described by Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former communications director, as ‘one of the best — and most important — of recent times.’ Invoking parallels with Václav Havel’s The Power of the Powerless, Carney boldly declared that the fiction of a rules-based order underwritten by American hegemony had collapsed, and called on ‘middle powers’ to unite.
The concept of middle powers, which refers to states that are neither superpowers nor small powers, is not new. However, Carney’s speech re-defined it as a political doctrine rather than a descriptive label, making it a rallying call for a new foreign policy dynamic in a time marred by threats to the multilateral rules-based order. The speech, which was well-received by international leaders from Denmark to Mexico, positioned Canada as a leader in navigating cooperation among states that are neither hegemons nor bystanders.
Yet within weeks, the gap between the Davos rhetoric and the reality of middle power coordination began to show. On 28 February 2026, the United States and Israel launched military strikes against Iran without consulting NATO allies. Canada had the convening power, rhetorical momentum, and diplomatic relationships to bring like-minded states together to develop a response. Instead, it reacted with a nationally-calibrated statement. The Gulf crisis began without a unified middle power statement on international law, without a collective framework for tackling Trump’s unilateralism, and without any trace of Carney’s Davos vision. While Germany, France and the UK released a joint statement condemning Iranian counter-strikes, Canada spoke in generalities. This failure to grasp the opportunity for a wider middle power response is not Canada’s alone. However, it reveals the gap between aspiration and the architecture of middle power politics.
Rather than converging on principles, middle powers find it far easier to align on sector-specific economic advantages, as exemplified by Canada’s new artificial intelligence strategy, which names partners including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, India, and Japan, alongside several European states. Most collaboration will remain sector-specific, driven by perceived incentives rather than shared values. However, this pragmatic drift does not foreclose a second, values-based approach to middle power dialogue. There is both space and a genuine need for liberal-democratic states to work together and change an international order tilted towards American hegemony.
What are middle powers and why does this question matter?
According to the World Economic Forum, middle powers sit below great powers, which have a permanent spot at the UN Security Council, namely China, France, Russia, the US and the UK, but still ‘exert influence over global politics – they are states with extensive diplomatic, economic, multilateral, and sometimes military, clout.’ Traditionally, liberal-democratic countries such as Canada, Australia and South Korea were labelled as middle powers, but the term is increasingly being applied to countries such as Brazil, India, and Saudi Arabia. The Harvard Belfer Center attributes middle powers’ influence to their ‘willingness and ability to work with multiple partners simultaneously’ in the international arena, which reflects a more incentive-driven approach to international partnerships. For example, the Mexico-Canada Action Plan 2025-2028 was established primarily in response to increased tariff pressure from the US, as both countries felt persuaded to seek alternative supply chain routes – not because of values.
This materialist view diverges from liberal internationalism, which insists middle powers are uniquely positioned to advance ‘good international citizenship,’ as their relative security from hegemonic competition allows them to champion international law and multilateral institutions. The post-1945 diplomacy of Canada, Australia, the Nordic states, and the Netherlands presents some empirical support to this perspective. The archetypal case is Lester Pearson’s response to the 1956 Suez Crisis: as Canada’s foreign minister, he designed the first United Nations peacekeeping force to extract Britain and France from a war of their own making, establishing the template of the middle power as a creative broker between great powers.
A coalition that could speak across the EU’s major member states, the Commonwealth’s leading democracies and the Global South’s most dynamic economies would command extraordinary legitimacy. The challenge, as the Iran episode illustrated, is that shared conditions do not automatically produce shared interests, much less shared institutionalised structures. Instead, middle powers will likely continue to navigate increasingly complicated geopolitics through purpose-driven partnerships, which remain focused on national interests and selective alignment. The question is whether this pragmatic pattern is the ceiling of middle power cooperation or merely its floor.
Anti-American, anti-Chinese or pro-something? Can middle powers build something that lasts?
The Canadian perspective on middle power coalition building aligns with that of Alexander Stubb, President of Finland, who coined the term ‘value-based realism’, combining principles such as territorial integrity and human rights with a view that progress is incremental and not all partners align across values. Strategic optionality allows middle powers to build flexible, issue-specific coalitions, which allows them to avoid choosing a side in the US-China rivalry.
One caveat for coalition-building is that a substantial number of the growing middle powers are authoritarian regimes which may use partnerships with democracies to gain credibility whilst diluting human rights norms and normalising authoritarianism. This does not mean that cooperation with authoritarian middle powers is inadvisable. Within specific domains, coalitions can reduce dependence on greater powers, notably in critical minerals, climate and energy, AI, and supply chains. However, democratic middle powers need to be clear-eyed about the distinction between transactional cooperation and values-based coalition-building. Conflating the two risks producing a coalition that talks about defending the rules-based order while quietly accommodating its erosion. For example, Saudi Arabia’s swift diplomatic rehabilitation following the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of Saudi Arabia’s government based in the US, demonstrates how democracies’ commitments to accountability proved subordinate to energy, investment and security interests, allowing the kingdom to re-emerge as a desirable partner.
Middle powers also share an interest in a reformed multilateral system that is more representative and effective. Most ambitious states have an opportunity to drive a rule-of-law agenda aimed at international institutional reform, especially in the context of the UN Security Council, voting weights in the IMF and World Bank, and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). For instance, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which now includes nearly forty countries without American leadership, can promote WTO reform even outside of the organisation when necessary. A coalition of states willing to work on strengthening international law can propose equitable institutional reforms to voting weights, veto structures and membership rules that currently reflect an era of American hegemony and a concentration of Western influence. Rather than abandoning international law, liberal-democratic middle powers have both the credibility and the incentive to lead such reforms.
Many hands, no anchor: who leads the middle?
Canada remains well-positioned to support middle power dialogue by spearheading a united front, proposing changes to the architecture of international institutions, and building issue-specific partnerships among middle powers. However, the months since Davos have shown that middle power leadership cannot rest on a single state, and other candidates are now stepping forward. The UK is the most compelling candidate to shape middle power dialogue. Post-Brexit, Britain has been forced into cross-bloc bridge-building that middle power diplomacy requires. Its Commonwealth ties, historical relationships across Africa and South Asia, military strength and global financial centre give it the necessary credibility to be a trusted convener. Britain is already performing this role: together with France, it co-leads the 34-state Coalition of the Willing on Ukraine, formed to provide security guarantees the US would no longer offer, and it has led international cooperation on AI safety since hosting the 2023 Bletchley Park summit. The Foreign Secretary explicitly describes Britain’s ambition as that of a ‘convening superpower’. The November 2026 Commonwealth summit in Antigua and Barbuda, followed by the 2027 G20 Presidency, will offer Britain two consecutive opportunities to translate its convening ambitions into a sustained programme of middle power leadership.
Middle power leadership is also emerging beyond Canada and the UK. The Strait of Hormuz crisis exposed how dependent some middle powers are on energy corridors, and by extension the decisions of greater-power nations such as the US. Yet it also created an opportunity for strengthened camaraderie. In April 2026, Turkey brought together leaders from over 150 countries spanning South America, Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum. The summit was a venue to discuss how middle powers can respond to the Gulf crisis by strengthening independence through new energy routes, logistics hubs and improved regional connectivity at a time when the US disregards its allies and the global rules-based order. Moreover, Turkey’s positioning as co-host of COP31 in Antalya alongside Australia allows the country to strategically leverage its role as a bridge between Europe, the Middle East and central Asia, shaping climate negotiations even when America has chosen to disengage. Turkey’s COP Presidency aims to ensure ‘a more just and inclusive diplomacy where no country is left behind.’
Hakan Fidan, Turkey’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, placed emphasis on energy corridors and middle power at both the Antalya summit and in the COP31 Presidency’s framing: the joint Turkey-Australia presidency letter presents climate action explicitly as a pathway to long-term energy security and economic resilience. Indeed, the letter suggests that the energy insecurity exposed by the Hormuz closure could become the political lever for climate progress in Antalya rather than a distraction from it. A deeper integration on energy security and climate resilience could offer middle powers a strategic advantage in the current geopolitical landscape.
African states, including Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda and Ghana, have also emerged as active participants in middle power dialogues on AI infrastructure and data sovereignty. The continent has little data centre capacity, and most of its internet traffic is processed on foreign servers, which creates a dependency and lock-in effect on specific companies in the US and China. Foreign companies can abuse data privacy laws anywhere, but African states are less likely to push back as they likely do not have an alternative, such as a local LLM or governance capacity or diplomatic power to set guardrails against Big Tech. In other words, African states and middle powers alike risk being consumers of infrastructure and standards set by Washington and Beijing. Nigeria, Egypt and Kenya have all released AI policies since January 2025 that identify dependence on US tech companies as a threat to survival and security. Thus, there is a potential for middle powers to coordinate in shaping standards and norms on AI safety, algorithmic accountability, and the governance of sovereign AI systems before they are locked in unilaterally by the US or China. Rather than completely pivoting away from the US, these states are diversifying across American, Gulf and African-owned providers. Equally, rather than replacing the US with China, African nations are using Chinese infrastructure resources to gain international leverage while enacting strict regulations to protect their own sovereignty. This hybrid strategy shows that African states are increasingly practising the strategic optionality which characterises middle powers.
Taken together, these cases suggest that the question of leadership is badly posed if it assumes a single vacancy waiting to be filled. Different states are positioned to convene different things, either based on pre-agreed positions about international law and the defence of multilateral norms, or by convening around sectoral need, where membership is defined by shared exposure rather than shared values. The future of middle power politics depends less on who claims the mantle rather than on matching the convener to the type of coalition.
What could the future look like for middle powers?
Mark Carney’s Davos speech is a consequential contribution to middle power diplomacy. It pointed towards a path of value-based realism, which is both principled and pragmatic. However, speeches are not substitutes for durable institutions. The 2026–27 window with BRICS under India, the G20 under the UK, and COP31 led by Turkey and Australia, offers an opportunity to strengthen middle power positioning.
Even if better architecture could strengthen middle power dialogue through consultation mechanisms and shared frameworks, such forms of collaboration can only help when a coalition is already roughly aligned on its values. The middle power challenge remains: a coalition that includes Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE alongside Canada, Germany, and Australia cannot be held together by institutional design alone. What is required, in the end, is not a single middle power coalition but a nested set of cooperation structures that are flexible and issue-specific. A more honest reckoning requires distinguishing between different types of coalition, each with its own logic and its own realistic collaboration ceiling.
There is an opportunity to strengthen middle power independence by working together across strategic lines. This approach allows for middle powers to work together on setting standards before they are locked in, building optionality, and raising the costs of unilateral coercion, but it does not require Ankara or Riyadh to endorse liberal democratic norms. Instead, it requires them to recognise that coordinating on energy infrastructure, supply chain resilience, and AI governance offers a strategic advantage. Such partnerships can serve democratic members well, provided that they are clear about what they are willing to endorse.
While middle powers cannot compete against greater powers, they can shape the terms on which great-power competition plays out. Whether they choose to harness this power will determine whether the Carney momentum becomes a turning point or merely a well-delivered speech. While middle powers are likely to act opportunistically, this does not mean that there is no space for developing shared values. At the very least, aligning on shared interests is necessary so that middle powers can be seen as something more than a bargaining chip in negotiations with China or the US. The incentive in middle powers’ strategy needs to move away from shared anxiety and towards structural opportunities for growth and resilience.
Marta Kąkol is a Policy Advisor at the Powering Past Coal Alliance, where she focuses on the politics of clean energy transition. She is a public policy and government affairs expert with experience across EU and global climate policy, socio-economic developments and geopolitics. Marta is also an Editor in Global Politics at the Oxford Political Review, through which she pursues her interest in politics, innovation and socio-economic policy. She holds an MSc in Politics Research from the University of Oxford.