In recent years, the world’s great powers have increasingly placed their own narrow interests and their deepening competition with one another ahead of the well-being of the wider international order: the United States reiterates its lofty principles without truly addressing the security concerns of its adversaries; Russia pursues destabilizing actions to gain an edge in its asymmetric contest with the West; and rather than embrace the role of defender of globalization and multilateralism, China has chosen the path of assertiveness and has hunkered down for a long-term standoff with the U.S.
In such a context, middle powers ideally should play a role in restraining the impulses of the world’s most powerful states. However, in the current crisis over Ukraine, Euro-Atlantic allies (apart from France’s Emmanuel Macron) have opted to prioritize demonstrating “unity,” rather than pursue creative diplomacy with Russia which might have averted a war.