Middle powers and the global maritime order

Forget independence, or even capable partner with shared interests, AUKUS positions Australia as a manipulated middle power patsy in a regional and global contest.

One of the weirdest takes in recent strategic debates is the idea that middle powers can protect global trade routes. The argument is everywhere: South Korea’s nervous talks on energy and a blue-water navy, Australia’s near idiotic debate on AUKUS, and Canada’s dithering on submarine procurement.

The middle power baloney spiel goes like this: the international order is less stable, so middle powers must step up. They must protect shipping. They must defend sea lanes. They must uphold the rules-based order. They’re trading states and must preserve global trade routes through determination, sufficient investment, and of course, a sprinkle of middle power magic: cooperation and coalition-building. Absolute baloney.

The problem is, the moment a middle power or coalition of middle powers secures and maintains global trade routes, they are no longer middle powers, by definition. They’ve reached the pinnacle of the international hierarchy.

There is a reason that historians speak of the Pax Britannica, Pax Americana, or hesitatingly about Pax Sinica. The ability to guarantee access to global trade routes is not a middle-power activity. It’s the defining function of dominant naval powers.

Maintaining open sea lanes requires far more than a collection of warships. It demands global logistics networks, overseas bases, intelligence systems, repair facilities, replenishment vessels, surveillance assets, and the capacity to sustain operations across multiple oceans simultaneously. This is not merely expensive. It is a task that requires the resources of a great power.

Consider what’s required for a trading state to guarantee the uninterrupted flow of commerce from the Middle East to East Asia. Forces would need to be present around the Strait of Hormuz, across the Indian Ocean, the Strait of Malacca, throughout the South China Sea, and around home waters.

Naval vessels spend substantial time in maintenance, training, and transit, maintaining a single ship on station requires three or four vessels in total. What begins as a seemingly modest commitment quickly expands into dozens of major warships, submarines, support vessels, maritime patrol aircraft, and overseas facilities. The numbers rapidly well exceed the capabilities of middle powers.

This reality exposes a deeper problem in contemporary debate. Much of the discussion assumes that if American maritime dominance declines, a coalition of middle powers can somehow fill the gap. The mathematics suggest otherwise.

A coalition can distribute burdens, but it does not magically create the logistics, command structures, political unity, or economic resources necessary to sustain a global naval order. Collective wishful thinking is not a substitute for capability. Then there’s the risk of defection.

Coalitions of middle powers face a persistent temptation to defect. All members benefit from secure trade routes, but each has an incentive to let others bear the costs of maintaining them. As deployments become more expensive and risks increase, governments naturally seek to conserve resources and prioritize national interests. The result is a classic collective action problem: everyone wants the benefits of maritime security, but not everyone wants to pay for it.

The defection risk increases exponentially when a coalition threatens the interests of a great power—and inherently, any attempt to secure sea lanes would threaten the interests of at least one great power.

On top of all this, technology has transformed the contest for maritime order. As demonstrated in Iran, even great powers face major hurdles to absolute dominance.

Advances in drones, precision-guided munitions, and long-range missile systems have altered the balance between maritime attack and continental defence. As the cost of threatening ships declines and the cost of protecting them rises, middle powers face growing pressure to invest in capabilities that defend territory and deny access rather than project power across vast distances.

That’s what makes Australia’s bungled two-step, sometimes cha-cha towards nuclear powered submarines with AUKUS so feckless. Between the ridiculous amounts of money being wasted, and the ever-decreasing likelihood of securing any subs at all, the ultimate result of securing them will be to decrease national sovereignty and to position Australia in sharp opposition to the dominant regional state.

Forget independence, or even capable partner with shared interests, AUKUS positions Australia as a manipulated middle power patsy in a regional and global contest.

This is the nature of structural realism. Middle powers always exist in a hierarchy. The top layer of that hierarchy determines the rules—including the rules and norms of maritime order. Middle powers can either fight against that order and suffer, or work within that order to strengthen and mold the rules to their liking. They cannot establish a new order! Maritime order has always rested on great powers. Great powers shape it. Others operate within it.

Middle powers like South Korea and Australia enjoyed the benefits of a maritime system they did not have to build and did little to maintain. As that system becomes more contested, the temptation is to believe that enough cooperation, enough rhetoric, and enough strategic optimism can preserve it. That temptation is misplaced.

The challenge facing middle powers is not how to take over the management of global trade routes or to protect their own global shipping routes. The challenge is how to survive and adapt to a world where the rules have changed. Middle powers cannot lead without the acquiescence of great powers. They must adapt.

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