Middle powers gain leverage as fragmented geopolitics weakens larger states

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Middle powers gain leverage

Highlights

Smaller powers like Denmark, Saudi Arabia, and Australia can increasingly impose costs and resist pressure from larger states due to new military and diplomatic leverage.
Fragmented global power in 2026 means neither the U.S. nor China can unilaterally dictate outcomes, making sanctions and diplomatic coercion less effective worldwide.
While technological dominance in sectors such as artificial intelligence remains concentrated in the U.S. and China, this does not guarantee those powers broader geopolitical control.

Why smaller actors are proving harder to overpower

As reported by the Financial Times, the setbacks facing larger powers span both war and diplomacy, pointing to a broader shift rather than a string of isolated reversals. The piece cites Saudi Arabia and its allies’ inability to contain the Houthis, Ukraine’s resistance to Russia over almost five years, and pressure on U.S. positions in the Gulf as examples of weaker actors imposing meaningful costs on stronger opponents.

It argues that this is no longer unusual in modern conflict. While cheaper and more effective military technology helps smaller forces challenge bigger armies, the same dynamic also appears in statecraft, where less powerful countries can resist coercion if they hold some form of leverage, whether geographic, industrial or technical.

Examples include Denmark securing a Greenland deal with America on terms less one-sided than President Donald Trump had sought, and Australia refusing to yield after China retaliated against its call for a Covid-19 origins inquiry. In both cases, the article presents smaller countries as able to absorb pressure without capitulating, limiting the practical reach of more powerful states.

The analysis also stresses that raw strength is often overstated because much of it is politically unusable. Larger powers may possess military or economic tools on paper, but the diplomatic, moral and reputational costs of using them can make those tools less credible in practice.

Fragmented global power limits superpowers’ reach

The article argues that the geopolitical environment of 2026 is less centralised than in earlier eras, reducing the ability of any one country to dominate outcomes across regions. The U.S. accounts for a smaller share of world output than it did after the second world war, while China also lacks the weight to dictate terms universally, meaning sanctions and tariffs are easier for targeted countries to work around.

That diffusion of power has implications for allies and partners as well. Support from major states, whether in arms, intelligence or diplomacy, is finite, making it harder for even aligned countries such as Saudi Arabia to rely on unlimited backing when conflicts drag on.

The piece contrasts this fragmented geopolitical order with the concentration seen in advanced technology, especially artificial intelligence, where the U.S. and China remain dominant because of their scale, capital and markets. Its conclusion is that technological supremacy does not automatically translate into broader geopolitical control, as military, diplomatic and regional contests still depend on a wider range of constraints and sources of leverage.

Our earlier report on tensions over Greenland’s resource future explained how President Donald Trump’s claims of impending large-scale oil, gas and mineral exploration ran up against Greenland’s existing legal bans and the limited scope of a recent U.S.-Denmark-Greenland security agreement. We noted that while the deal expands the U.S. military footprint, it does not change mining rights, leaving investors facing uncertainty that ultimately hinges on Greenland’s domestic approvals rather than Washington’s rhetoric.

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