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Australia's middle power diplomacy matters

Published in East Asia Forum, 13 January 2025

There is no standard definition or agreed international list of ‘middle powers’ and no lack of continuing argument about not only the concept but its operational utility and, in some cases, its acceptability. Although Australia would be on most lists, my successor as foreign minister Alexander Downer, for one, would always insist that we were not a mere ‘middle’ but a ‘pivotal’ power.

For me and most in the global policy community — and certainly the current Australian government — ‘middle power’ language does not imply mediocrity or insignificance. But what is it that distinguishes middle powers from both great powers like the United States and China and major powers like Russia, India and Japan? And at the other end of the spectrum, what distinguishes middle powers from small powers?

Focusing on objective measures of physical size does not take the definitional argument very far. Norway, Singapore and New Zealand would be on most middle power lists, but all have populations of less than six million people, some 50 times smaller than Indonesia which would also generally be so regarded.

What better characterises middle powers is a combination of what they are not, what they are and the mindset they bring to their international roles. They are not economically big or militarily strong enough to impose their policy preferences on other states, either globally or, for the most part, regionally. But they are nonetheless states that are sufficiently capable in terms of their diplomatic resources, sufficiently credible in terms of their record of principled behaviour and sufficiently motivated to be able to make, individually, a significant impact on international relations in a way that small states cannot.

Middle powers are also characterised by generally bringing a particular mindset to the conduct of their international relations, namely being attracted to the use of ‘middle power diplomacy’, which can in turn be described as having both a characteristic motivation and a characteristic method.

The characteristic motivation of middle power diplomacy is belief in the utility and necessity of acting cooperatively in addressing international challenges, particularly those global public goods problems that by their nature cannot be solved by any country acting alone. And its characteristic method is coalition building with ‘like-minded’ partners — those who share specific interests and are prepared to work together to do something about them.

For middle power diplomacy to be effective, a number of factors must come together — practical opportunity, diplomatic resources, energy and stamina, intellectual creativity, credibility and being seen as genuinely independent.

There are many examples, albeit now most some year old, of Australia effectively practising middle power diplomacy as I define it, including:

  • the role of Labor governments in initiating the Uruguay round of trade negotiations, Asia Pacific dialogue mechanisms like APEC and ARF, the Antarctic mining prohibition treaty, finalising the Chemical Weapons Treaty and initiating the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
  • the role of an Australian Coalition government in bringing to conclusion the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
  • the role of Australia and Indonesia working together to craft and drive the Cambodian peace settlement
  • the role of Australia, Canada and New Zealand in leading the global fight against apartheid, with sports, trade and cultural boycotts and financial sanctions; and
  • the role of Canada, Australia and South Africa working together to initiate and achieve global consensus for the concept of the responsibility to protect (R2P).

It is romantic to believe that middle powers could ever have the kind of capacity to shape the world order that is exercised by the great powers — the United States and China. It may be almost as romantic to think that middle powers have, individually or collectively, a capacity comparable to second-tier major powers like Russia and India. Middle power impact is more likely to be on individual issues, involving what might be called ‘niche diplomacy’. But some of those niche roles do have much more than merely niche importance.

Looking to the future, there are a number of areas in which Australian middle power diplomacy can potentially make a real difference, whether by way of agenda-setting, North-South bridge-building (an aspiration of the MIKTA group within the G20) or simply building critical masses of support for global or regional public goods delivery. These areas include:

  • working to make the East Asian Summit become in practice the preeminent regional security and economic dialogue and policy-making body it was designed to be;
  • maintaining a leading advocacy role in support of free and open trade, including globally through the WTO and regionally through RCEP and the CPTPP, and vigorously resisting likely protectionist assaults by the Trump administration;
  • working to harness, without over-relying on an increasingly erratic US, the collective middle-power energy and capacity of a number of regional states of real regional substance — including India, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and Vietnam — to visibly push back (through mechanisms like a Quad+, optically useful though not purporting to be a formal military alliance) against potential Chinese over-reach in the region;
  • at the same time, actively arguing for the US as well as China to step back from the strategic competition brink, and embrace and sustain over time the spirit of détente which, which dramatically thawed relations between the US and Soviet Union;
  • building on our longstanding nuclear risk reduction credentials, bridging the gap between those who, on the one hand, will settle only for the kind of absolutism embodied in the Nuclear Ban Treaty, and on the other hand, the nuclear armed states and those sheltering under their protection who want essentially no movement at all on disarmament;
  • becoming an acknowledged global leader, not just bit player, in the campaign against global warming, putting our green energy transition money where our mouth is.

It is never easy to craft coalitions across geographical, cultural and ideological divides but the need, will and capacity to do so is as well recognised as ever. But crafting coalitions will require, as ever, strong leadership. Coalitions do not build themselves — they have to be forged.

Raw economic and military power will always count for a lot in international affairs. But it does not count for everything. Middle powers with a sense of where they want to go and with the credibility, resources and energy to follow through can have a major impact in making the Asia Pacific region and the wider world safer, saner and more prosperous. That is the challenge for Australia and all those who think like us.

Gareth Evans is former Australian foreign minister and chancellor of The Australian National University.

This article was first published in East Asia Forum on 13 January 2025.