In September 2026, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called for the world’s “middle powers” to haver closer relationship.
He gave a speech at the European Union, encouraging the members to create “an alliance strong enough so that no one can dictate our choices.” And Canada might become the first affiliate member of the EU, as part of this middle power strategy.
But what exactly is a middle power? What makes a country powerful? And why are middle powers becoming increasingly important in international politics?
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Vocabulary
- influence (v/n): to affect the behaviour, opinions, or decisions of someone or something
- Canada uses diplomacy and international cooperation to influence global politics.
- capability (n): the ability or capacity to do something
- A country’s military capability is an important part of its overall power.
- diplomacy (n): the practice of managing relationships and negotiations between countries
- Diplomacy allows countries to resolve disagreements without using military force.
- negotiate (v): to discuss something in order to reach an agreement
- Middle powers can negotiate agreements that benefit several countries.
- alliance (n): a relationship in which countries agree to cooperate
- South Korea’s alliance with the United States plays an important role in its national security.
- coalition (n): a group of countries or organisations working together
- A coalition of middle powers could have more influence than any one country acting alone.
- multipolarity (n): a situation where power is distributed among several important countries or groups
- The rise of China, India, and other influential countries could contribute to greater multipolarity in the international system.
What is Power?
When we describe a country as “powerful”, we usually mean something like it has the ability to influence or control other countries and international events.
The political scientist Robert Dahl, for example, famously defined power “as the ability of actor A to get actor B to do something they wouldn’t otherwise do.” That is power: to get someone to do something they wouldn’t do unless you told them to.
Power can come from many different sources, though.
Military strength is maybe the obvious example. A country with a large and advanced military is probably powerful, [00:04:00] especially if the country has nuclear weapons or a very powerful navy or air force. They can defend themselves. They can threaten other countries with their soldiers and weapons.
Economic strength is another form of power. A large economy gives a country the ability to use their money overseas. They can gain influence from having important resources or advanced technology. They can invest their money in ways that gives them a little bit of power, a little bit of influence.
There is also diplomatic power. There are countries that don’t have large economies or strong militaries, but are still powerful because they have relationships with other countries and are good at negotiating international agreements.
This is sometimes connected to the idea of “soft power“, another form of power. Soft power is the ability to influence others through culture, education, political ideas, influence people through your [00:05:00] reputation or your international relationships.
Great Powers History
Throughout history, some countries have possessed enough power, they’ve had enough economic, military, or political strength to influence events internationally. These countries are often described as “great powers.”
The concept of a “great power” is particularly associated with European history. During the 18th and 19th centuries, countries like Britain, France, Russia, Austria, and Prussia had large armies and big economies. They also had territories or colonial empires, and they had quite advanced diplomatic networks.
To be a great power, a country had to have enough capabilities and enough influence to affect the behavior of other major countries. Great powers made decisions that changed the entire region.
A good example [00:06:00] of great powers working is the period after the Napoleonic Wars. In 1815, European powers, including Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, defeated Napoleon. Napoleon was from France.
These great powers, these European powers, tried to create a more stable international system. They became the main participants in the Concert of Europe, along with France as well, a little bit later. This system was partly based on the idea of a balance of power. If one country became too strong, other countries could cooperate to prevent it from dominating Europe.
The First World War weakened most European powers, and the Second World War was even more destructive. Britain and France came out of the Second World War on the winning side, but they had suffered massive economic and military damage. Germany and Japan were also great [00:07:00] powers that had been completely defeated, and most of Europe was physically devastated.
Cold War Superpowers
Two countries, however, left the war with extraordinary power: United States and the Soviet Union.
Both of these countries had enormous militaries. They had huge territories and big populations, lots of land. They had lots of resources. They had powerful economies, both in industry and agriculture. And they had the ability to influence countries far beyond their immediate regions. They had influence on most continents around the world.
Most importantly, both the Soviet Union and the United States by the 1950s had developed large nuclear arsenals. They had lots of nuclear weapons. And they also represented competing political and economic systems. The United States led a capitalist bloc, represented liberal [00:08:00] capitalism, and the Soviet Union led the communist bloc.
This created the Cold War. From roughly 1947 until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, international politics was characterized by competition between these two countries.
The United States and the Soviet Union were superpowers, not great powers. They were superpowers.
A great power is a country with exceptional international influence and capabilities. A superpower is a country with an even greater combination of capabilities, allowing it to operate on a global scale. Basically, the difference is a great power is very influential, but a superpower is influential everywhere.
The United States and Soviet Union could influence events on every single continent, and basically in every country in the world. They had alliances around the world, [00:09:00] and they tried to spread their influence as much as possible. They developed really advanced military technologies, and they competed directly against each other.
Unipolar Moment Ends
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Cold War ended. For a period of time, the United States was left in an absolutely dominant position. There was no other country with a comparable combination of economic power, military power, technolo- technological power, diplomatic power.
Some scholars and political scientists describe this as a unipolar moment. A period in history in which one country was so much more powerful than anyone else. And famously, the political scientist Francis Fukuyama published his book, The End of History, arguing that now, this unipolar moment, meant that liberal democracy had become undefeatable.
But [00:10:00] that situation seems to have changed.
China has experienced extraordinary economic growth and has a great military power. Other countries like India and Brazil and Indonesia, South Korea, have significant regional and international influence. And the EU, as a collective, is also very influential.
Defining Middle Powers
So now we’ve talked about great powers and
superpowers. Maybe we can come back to the concept of a “middle power.”
A middle power is a country that has international influence but is not powerful enough to dominate the international system and is not powerful enough to compete with the world’s great powers. Middle powers sit somewhere between a smaller normal country and a great power.
It is hard to define a middle power more specifically. You can’t really do it in terms of population or capability. A country [00:11:00] with a population of 100 million people is obviously larger than a country with a population of five million people, but population does not translate into international influence. And a country might have a relatively small military, but still have a lot of influence due to its alliances and diplomacy.
A middle power probably can’t force other countries to do things, especially not by using its economic trade power or its military power. Instead, though, they can try to influence politics by negotiating and participating in international organizations.
This is sometimes called niche diplomacy. Niche diplomacy is when a country concentrates its effort on a specific issue where it can actually make a difference, something like climate change or peacekeeping.
Political scientists also like to point out that middle powers can be influential by acting as norm entrepreneurs. [00:12:00] This sounds very complicated, but basically a norm entrepreneur means that middle powers promote international laws and international treaties. For example, Canada historically has championed the creation of international landmine bans. The Ottawa Treaty is an example.
Countries can also move between different levels of power as they change. India is an example. For much of the modern period, India was a middle power, but now its enormous population, its growing economy, the fact it has nuclear weapons, it has a large military, is increasingly important. It has led to some people describing it as an emerging great power or a major power.
Middle Power Examples
So which countries are actually considered to be middle powers?
Well, Canada and Australia are classic examples. Both are wealthy, developed countries with strong militaries, significant natural [00:13:00] resources, and lots of diplomatic relationships. They have influence beyond their region, but they don’t have the economic or military capabilities of a superpower.
South Korea is another example. South Korea consistently ranks inside the world’s top 15 economies and has advanced semiconductor supply chains. It also has a powerful military, and it is strategically important. It’s in the middle of East Asia, right between major powers like China, Russia, and the USA.
Brazil is the largest country and economy in South America. It has lots of natural resources and plays a really important role in international organizations. Indonesia has a large population, a growing economy. It’s in an important position, and it has one of the biggest militaries in the world.
There are many other examples of middle powers, Turkey, Argentina, South Africa, lots of European countries as well. These countries are very different from one another. [00:14:00] In fact, this is one of the weaknesses of the term middle power.
Canada and Indonesia probably both are middle powers, but they’re very different, and their priorities are obviously very different as well.
Some countries are very difficult to classify as well. Japan has one of the world’s largest economies and a very powerful alliance with the United States. Sometimes it’s described as a middle power, but its capabilities, if you were to compare Japan to the UK or to France, its comparable, if not better, in some regards.
Germany also is one of the most important countries in Europe, but Germany’s military power and foreign policy role has been quite different from what you’d assume a great power to be since World War II.
And then there are countries like France and the UK, which were certainly great powers 100 years ago, and probably still are great powers due to their nuclear weapons and [00:15:00] militaries, but it’s less certain as time goes on.
How Middle Powers Act
How can middle powers influence politics then? They’re not powerful enough to force superpowers like the US or China to do things. So what, what can they actually do?
One method is diplomacy. Canada can’t force the United States to change its policies, but they can use diplomacy. Diplomacy, according to the dictionary definition, is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between nations.
Middle powers can negotiate, they can build relationships, they can propose agreements at the United Nations or the World Health Organization or the World Trade Organization. They can persuade countries to support particular ideas.
This can give a middle power more influence than if it just relied on its own strength.
Another strategy they use is called coalition building. Coalition is a word that describes when different groups work together. Basically, [00:16:00] a middle power can achieve more when it works with other countries.
Right now, Canada, for example, is pushing for greater cooperation with the European Union. This is to increase Canada’s influence. On its own, it may not have enough influence to persuade major countries to do things. But if 10 or 20 middle power countries support the same proposal, it becomes much harder for the major powers to ignore them.
This is one reason why middle powers tend to participate in the United Nations a lot, or other international organizations.
Middle powers can also cooperate through smaller groups. This is sometimes called minilateralism. Multilateralism involves many countries working together. Minilateralism involves smaller groups cooperating around a shared interest.
The Quad, for example, brings together the United States, Japan, India, and Australia. These countries [00:17:00] cooperate on security and stability in the Indo-Pacific. The CPTPP is another example of a trade agreement being used to deepen economic cooperation.
Middle powers also specialize through niche diplomacy, which is what I’ve talked about before. Instead of trying to be powerful in all areas, a middle power can focus on areas where it has expertise or where it can be influential. Some countries maybe focus on peacekeeping, others on climate change or nuclear non-proliferation, international development.
In summary, a great power or a superpower can influence politics through material capabilities, through its large economy, powerful military, its resources, its people. A middle power usually has to rely on relationships and cooperation. It can be a mediator. It can organize negotiations. It can help create laws and international organizations. It can [00:18:00] find different countries and bring them together to work on an issue.
Why They Matter Now
Are middle powers becoming more important now?
Well, I think the answer is yes.
One reason is that the relationships between the world’s largest powers are quite tense right now. The United States and China compete over everything: trade, tech, the military. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has completely destroyed relationships between Russia and Western countries.
The United States itself has had a really important role in the international system since World War II, and many countries have depended on the United States. European countries, countries in Asia, countries in the Americas.
But the US’s relationship with its traditional allies is becoming more and more complicated. The Trump administration’s America First approach has encouraged other countries to maybe think about what they do with their relationship with the US.
Middle powers often [00:19:00] follow a strategy called hedging. Hedging or to hedge is a method of limiting risk. It’s often a word used in financial contexts. If a country is hedging, they maintain relationships with several different powers at the same time and try to protect those interests.
India is a good example. It’s a member of BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which include countries like China and Russia. At the same time, India is also a member of the Quad, alongside the United States, Japan, and Australia.
The global economy is also changing. China is incredibly important. India is growing. Countries in Southeast Asia and Latin America and the Middle East and Africa are becoming more successful economically.
A multipolar world is a world where several countries and groups have enough influence to affect international affairs. And in that kind of system, middle powers have more opportunities.
During the Cold War, we [00:20:00] can describe it as bipolar. There were two powerful sources of power, the United States and the Soviet Union.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, maybe the world became unipolar. There was the United States.
But maybe now we’re moving back to a bipolar or a multipolar world. China’s powerful. Europe is powerful. There’s influential countries in more places.
However, the importance of middle powers does not mean that the United States or China is going to be replaced by Canada or Australia. The major powers are still very advantaged.
One big problem for middle powers is that they don’t always agree with each other. Canada does not agree with India all the time. Australia has different interests than Brazil does. Turkey has completely different goals than Japan.
I used the word multipolarity a few minutes ago. Multipolarity describes the distribution of power. A multipolar world [00:21:00] has several important centers of power rather than one dominant country.
Multilateralism is a different term. Multilateralism is how countries cooperate. It means countries work together through organizations or agreements.
The world could become more multipolar and multilateral at the same time. For example, I think it seems likely that the United States and China are going to be unwilling to lead the world on certain issues, like climate change, for example.
So middle powers could fill their role at the United Nations or other organizations.
Final Thought
What can we learn from the concept of a middle power?
Well, military strength and economic size are very important when we consider how powerful a country is, but they are not the only sources of power.
Great powers and superpowers, I think, will [00:22:00] obviously continue to dominate politics. The United States and China can do things that no other country can do. No other country will be able to copy. But this does not mean that every country is powerless.
Middle powers have enough resources and influence to affect the world, but they can’t always achieve their goals alone. They need diplomacy. They need organizations to help them.
And as relations between major countries become more tense, countries like Canada, Australia, Japan, and South Korea, Brazil, and Indonesia, I think they have strong reasons to develop more partnerships and to try and increase their power.
Canada’s closer relationship with the European Union is one example of this trend. Canada doesn’t want to become a superpower. It’s trying to make sure that it has options for its future.
But what do you think? Would you class your country as a middle power?
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