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COMMENTARY: Can middle powers actually coalesce?

Let’s set to one side the lack of definitional clarity and precision about the concept of so-called “middle powers.” In a previous article, I raised some concerns about how the term “power” is calculated and measured, which countries should belong to this club, and whether their membership is more a function of the roles that they perform on the international stage.

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For argument’s sake, I’ll assume that this classification of states does exist for purposes of this discussion. But are these middle powers capable of joining forces and serving as a counterpoise to the “great powers” of China, the U.S. and, arguably, Russia? Can they also come together to constrain the actions of the major powers, to articulate new avenues to confront serious global difficulties, and to bring sanity to the community of states?

In January, Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke a lot about the emergent middle powers as central to the institutional machinery and international norms that make global politics manageable. His speech in Davos highlighted the seminal challenge of the moment: “The multilateral institutions on which the middle powers have relied – the WTO, the UN, the COP – the architecture, the very architecture of collective problem solving – are under threat.”

In another section of his speech, he identified........

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