By
Miras Zhiyenbayev
Africa-Press – Eritrea. For much of the post-Cold War era, Eurasia’s middle powers enjoyed a favorable environment under the liberal international order. In a system governed by multilateral rules and institutions, these countries could thrive by acting as “good international citizens,” upholding norms and institutions. The US-led liberal order provided open markets, development aid, and forums like the UN where middle states had a voice. This rules-based framework empowered them to pursue growth and diplomacy without being steamrolled by raw great-power dominance. Just as a robust middle class buttresses democracy, middle powers became pillars of the liberal order, leveraging global trade, investment, and cooperation for their own advancement.
Today, however, that comfortable context is eroding. The intensifying rivalry between the United States and China has begun to undermine the strategic autonomy that middle powers long enjoyed. Great-power competition is injecting harsher power politics into international affairs, pressuring smaller states to choose sides or risk falling victim to zero-sum maneuvers. For example, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim warned that escalating US–China tensions “challenge the peace and stability” underpinning Asia’s growth. Likewise, Vietnamese Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính bluntly stated that in a turbulent world of “strategic competition and a great many choices, Vietnam picks no side”—a” reflection of how uncomfortable the binary Cold War-style choices have become.
The strategic space for middle powers is indeed under strain. Economic interdependence with both giants makes decoupling untenable—the U.S. remains a vital security guarantor and investor, while China has become the largest trade partner and development lender for many. In response, a new generation of Eurasian middle powers is doubling down on strategic autonomy as their guiding credo. This doesn’t mean isolation—far from it. Instead of throwing in their lot with one camp, these states seek to bind all powers into an interdependent web—thereby making it costly for any great power to upend the status quo or coerce the middle player. The goal is to prevent big-power rivalries from boiling over into open conflict on their soil and to restrain regional powerhouses from taking confrontational postures.
Nowhere is this strategy more developed than in Southeast Asia. Through ASEAN-centric multilateralism, countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand have constructed a “web of institutions and” forums”—from the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) to the East Asia Summit—that enmesh all the major powers as dialogue partners. The logic, as described by scholar Evelyn Goh, is an omni-enmeshment architecture: ASEAN’s inclusive forums bind regional players in a web of interdependent interests and act as channels for preventive diplomacy. By promoting ASEAN centrality, Southeast Asian middle powers ensure that both Washington and Beijing (along with Tokyo, Delhi, Canberra, and others) are stakeholders in regional stability. This buffer zone insulates ASEAN states from external shocks, giving them space to voice concerns and mediate between great powers. As Indonesia’s former foreign minister Marty Natalegawa famously championed, the region pursues “a million friends and zero” enemies”—engaging all powers to dilute the risk of having to choose one. The ASEAN bloc, acting collectively, thus fortifies each member’s strategic autonomy by refusing to become a theater of great-power conflict.
Outside Southeast Asia, other middle powers mirror this approach. Kazakhstan’s long-standing multi-vector policy is a prime example: Astana maintains strong ties with Russia, China, the U.S., Europe, and its regional neighbors simultaneously. Rather than swing between alignments, Kazakhstan’s leaders attempt to balance the legacy of relations with Russia—not by reducing those ties, but by strengthening relations with other powers, primarily China, then the United States. The idea is to avoid any overdependence and keep all major powers invested in Kazakhstan’s stability. Kazakhstan has elevated strategic autonomy to an art form. Geographically “between the bear and the dragon,” it has refused to be cowed by either. The basic premise of Kazakh foreign policy is figuring out “how you avoid being subjugated to the great powers or becoming an apple of contention among” them”—and doing so “without engaging in constant hedging.” The solution, according to long-time strategist President Tokayev (and before him Nazarbayev), is a “positive balance” in foreign relations. In practice this meant not cutting historic ties to Russia but counter-weighting them by ramping up relations with China, the U.S., Europe, Turkey, and others. Over the past decade, Kazakhstan has welcomed Chinese investment in its oil fields and signed oil export deals with Western firms; it hosts both American military transit facilities and is a member of Russian-led security and economic blocs. It joined China’s Belt and Road and built alternative trade corridors through the Caspian to Turkey. By actively diversifying partnerships, Kazakhstan has set the tone for its region. Notably, it spearheaded a new spirit of Central Asian cooperation: after 2016, Kazakh and Uzbek leadership teamed up to convene every Central Asian republic into regional summits, forging a united front that reduces their vulnerability to outside coercion. Kazakhstan even launched the Astana International Forum (AIF) in 2023 as a global conference explicitly aimed at middle powers. As the host government explained, Kazakhstan “maintains good relations with each of the major powers and believes countries should not have to choose” sides”—the AIF is meant to “provide all countries a new way to champion cooperation, multilateralism, and dialogue” in an era of polarization. In short, Astana is institutionalizing omni-enmeshment by rallying like-minded states to its banner of “no need to take sides.”
Collectively, these choices amount to a buffering strategy by Eurasian middle powers to soften the blows of great-power rivalry. They provide venues (like ASEAN, the East Asia Summit, the Shangri-La Dialogue, or Kazakhstan’s AIF) where U.S. and Chinese officials continue to meet and talk, even when bilateral relations are strained. Such forums offer a preventive channel for powers to voice concerns and manage incidents before they escalate. To be clear, strategic autonomy is not about neutrality in any moral sense. Many of these middle powers support a rules-based order and oppose hegemonic aggression (witness their votes on Ukraine at the UN or ASEAN’s stance on a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea). But they believe they can best uphold an open, stable order by refusing exclusive alliances and instead engaging all sides to uphold balance. In essence, they seek to recreate the benign conditions of the old liberal order—a multipolar equilibrium where rules and diplomacy temper raw might—but through a new modus operandi that fits a more contested era. This is pragmatic omnidirectionalism: making oneself valuable to all so that no great power sees benefit in undermining you or the regional peace.
Ironically, the middle powers’ strategy could also help moderate the rivalry itself. When countries like Indonesia, Thailand, or Kazakhstan pursue multi-alignment, they signal to Washington and Beijing that coercive, binary approaches will fail—instead, great powers must compete fairly for influence by offering public goods, not threats. In an optimistic scenario, the omni-enmeshment by middle states could help steer the world away from a Thucydides Trap by embedding the rivals in a mesh of norms and relationships that make outright hostility less tenable.
Of course, the road ahead is fraught with risks. The bipolar pressures will only intensify if U.S.–China relations worsen, and some smaller states will face hard tests of resolve. Middle-power unity is also not guaranteed—ASEAN’s cohesion, for example, is periodically strained by clashing national interests or external interference. Yet the general trajectory is clear: strategic autonomy has become the dominant foreign policy formula for Eurasia’s emerging middle powers. They recognize that the bygone liberal order’s openness served their interests well, and they are determined not to let a new era of great-power confrontation rob them of agency. By engaging all and aligning with none, these states strive to keep their strategic space open—proving that even in a bipolar world, the “countries in the middle” need not be helpless bystanders but can actively shape a more balanced and peaceful order.
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