Week signals: Return of the middlemen
Plus: watch points for Israel, South Africa, Canada, South Korea, India, and Bangladesh.
Hello,
In this edition of Week Signals:
IN REVIEW. Middle powers reviving, decentralised security, new agreements, old dilemmas.
UP AHEAD. Gaza talks, a SADC summit, Canadian tariffs, Seoul diplomacy, and South Asian rapprochement.
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The Week in Review: Will the empires strike back?
The week began with Trump scrambling for an offramp to Iran. It ended with him declaring that the Strait of Hormuz would become US territory and Americans would just need to put up with higher gas prices in the meantime (contrasting with his deputy’s contention that lower energy prices were somehow the main aim of the war).
All Friday night bluster perhaps, but it’s becoming clearer that the war won’t end soon. And amid the ongoing uncertainty over US strategy and munition stockpiles, it’s also becoming clearer that middle powers, who since World War II have depended on Washington for their security, are taking matters into the own hands.
Today, Oscar Martin is back to look at what some of those powers are doing, notably Germany in Europe, Japan in East Asia, and Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in the Middle East. Their efforts are unlikely to replace US heft in the short term, but in the long term they suggest a pathway to a multipolar world, or at least a bipolar US-China world where the middle rung can retain some optionality.
As in the Cold War and previous periods of great power competition, that’s good news for some sectors, like the defence industry, but other businesses may see new frictions and risks.