South Korea’s bid for Canada’s submarine project raises a provocative question for Australia: if Canada and Korea can build a modern, sovereign, conventional submarine fleet together, why can’t we get in on it too?
Washington’s build-up toward possible military action in Venezuela and Iran has attracted concern that the attacks are part of an irreversible decline. For its distant middle power partners, this raises a question: must middle powers fall when their patron does?
Middle powers do not have the capacity to shape changes in the strategic environment; rather, they react to them. What distinguishes them from smaller powers is their capacity to plan how to react in anticipation of change. If they’re lucky, reaction is planned in advance and they secure advantage.
We rarely think deeply about the term middle power, and are prone to ignore its influence, so could using the term blind analysts to changes in South Korea’s foreign policy?
Two decades ago, South Korea was rarely called a middle power. Today, it invites ridicule to suggest South Korea is anything but a middle power.
There are a plethora of studies on South Korea as a middle power. Some argue Korea needs to change to fit the term, some reinvent the term to fit Korea, and still others just use the term without questioning.
The academic discipline of international relations desperately needs new ways of talking about the 10-60 states - the middle powers.
Kazakhstan, a country too often unfairly treated as a punchline rather than a power, is treading a middle road – that of a middle power
The middle power term will still be used because it’s an easy label to throw about for politicians and journalists but academics should be held to a higher standard.
For an author who was an early advocate for South Korea to fulfil its role as a middle power in international society, it’s hard to say - stop!
