Military Strategy of Middle Powers explores to what degree twenty-first-century middle powers adjust their military strategies due to changes in the international order, such as the decline in US power. The overarching objective of the book is to explain continuity and change in the strategies of a group of middle powers during the twenty-first century. These strategies are described, compared, and explained through the lens of Realism. In order to find potential explanations for change or continuity within the cases, as well as for similarities and differences between the cases, the strategies of 11 ‘middle’ powers are analysed (Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, India, Japan, and South Korea). This group of countries are considered similar in several important aspects, primarily regarding relative power capacity. When searching for potential explanations for different strategic behaviours among the middle powers, their unique regional characteristics are a key focus and, consequently, the impact of the structure and polarity, as well as the patterns of amity and enmity, of the regional context are analysed. The empirical investigation is focused on security strategies used since the terrorist attacks 9/11 2001, which was one of the first major challenges to US hegemony. This book will be of much interest to students of military and strategic studies, foreign policy, and International Relations in general.

This book presents a systematic comparison of the military strategies pursued by (5) great powers, (8) major-middle powers and (8) middle powers during the early 21st century. This book will be of interest to students of military and strategic studies, defence studies, foreign policy and International Relations in general.

This book presents a systematic comparison of the military strategies pursued by five great powers, eight major middle powers and eight middle powers during the early twenty-first century. In addition to mapping the strategic priorities of these states, the study develops and applies a theoretical framework to explain differences and similarities in their strategic priorities. Moreover, the work evaluates how the stability of the present international system, and the US-led liberal international order (LIO), is affected by the strategies pursued by the US and other leading states. The book aims to contribute to previous research in three ways. First, it intervenes in the debate on the stability of the unipolar system and the US-led international order by offering a theoretical framework and an empirical approach for exploring and explaining the strategic priorities and defence strategies of different categories of states. Second, it aims to fill a void in research on strategy – the lack of a comparative and systematic approach to contemporary strategy that facilitates and guides systematic comparisons and analyses of the alignment and military strategies pursued by both major powers and less powerful states. Third, it provides an empirical contribution to the debate on the stability of the unipolar system and the US-led international order by presenting a documentation of the strategic priorities of 21 states based on primary sources, consisting of official documents such as national security and defence strategies and defence bills. In the conclusion, the authors summarise the empirical findings on the system level, the regional level and the unit level and present their overarching conclusions for the whole project. This book will be of much interest to students of military and strategic studies, defence studies, foreign policy and international relations in general.

This book explores the military strategies of the five system-determining great powers during the twenty-first century. The book’s point of departure is that analyses of countries’ defence strategies should acknowledge that states come in various shapes and sizes and that their strategic choices are affected by their perceptions of their position in the international system and by power asymmetries between more and less resourceful states. This creates a diversity in strategies that is often overlooked in theoretically oriented analyses. The book examines how five major powers – the United States, China, the United Kingdom, France and Russia – have adjusted their strategies to improve or maintain their relative position and to manage power asymmetries during the twenty-first century. It also develops and applies an analytical framework for exploring and categorising the strategies pursued by the five major powers which combines elements of structural realism with research on power transition theory and status competition. The concluding chapter addresses questions related to stability and change in the present international system. This book will be of interest to students of strategic studies, foreign policy, and International Relations.

This volume presents three claims regarding the role of middle powers in the 21st Century: first, states aspiring to become or remain middle powers choose from three possible role: to be a global middle powers; to be a regional pivot; or to be a niche leader. Second, states seeking such roles need different mixes of hard and soft power sources. Third, more so than great or small powers, middle powers walk a thin line between the domestic and systemic pressures they face. In this volume, these claims are based on (comparative) case studies of Germany, Iran, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, and Turkey.

Security Strategies of Middle Powers in the Asia Pacific examines what drives the different regional security strategies of four middle powers in the Asia Pacific: Australia, Indonesia, South Korea and Malaysia. Drawing on the extant middle power literature, the authors argue that the regional security strategies of middle powers could take two forms, namely, functional or normative. A functional strategy means that the middle power targets its resources to address a specific problem that it has a high level of interest in, while a normative strategy refers to a focus on promoting general behavioural standards and confidence building at the multilateral level. This book argues that whether a middle power ultimately employs a more functional or normative regional security strategy depends on its resource availability and strategic environment.

This book analyses the responses of middle powers in the Asia-Pacific toward the contemporary great powers’ rivalry of the United States and China, through specific cases studies of South Korea, Australia, Japan, India, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Presenting local perspectives from multiple middle powers as they face the task of maintaining the international order in light of the recent competition between China and the United States, it further develops theories of foreign policy analyses, forming a systematic framework through initiating crucial concepts, including reluctant hedging, economic statecraft, and strategic position-taking. The contributions also provide an in-depth examination of the contemporary geo-politics of the region, including the impact of both the Trump and Biden administrations, Beijing’s “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy, cross-strait relations with Taiwan, and the influences of Japan, Vietnam, Australia and South Korea, revealing that regional middle powers do indeed exert influence on the direction of regional cooperation in the Asia-Pacific. Providing comprehensive studies of many regional powers in the Asia-Pacific, this will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of International Politics, Asian Politics, Asian Studies as well as policy makers on Asia-Pacific relations.

The traditional understanding of strategic stability, as a condition wherein adversarial states refrain from waging a strategic war, is in the first place flawed as it conflates the concept with the wider issue of causes of war, it places too great an emphasis on arms racing and crisis management, and it has focused too much on nuclear strategy. This study situates the concept directly with the phenomena of accidental or inadvertent wars, and proposes an understanding of strategic stability as a condition wherein policy-makers do not feel pressured into knee-jerk decisions concerning the use of military force. This study proposes a framework of conventional strategic stability. It includes a geographic and strategic cultural milieu that frames the processes by which policy-makers and strategic planners identify and assess the threat posed by potential adversaries. It directs attention away from armaments to other military-strategic factors such as interpretations of strategic doctrines and intelligence and early warning processes. how domestic and external political conditions provide clues as to how and why strategic stability either maintains or fails, because decisions for war are ultimately political in nature.

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union were only two of the many events that profoundly altered the international political system in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In a world no longer dominated by Cold War tensions, nation states have had to rethink their international roles and focus on economic rather than military concerns. This book examines how two middle powers, Australia and Canada, are grappling with the difficult process of relocating themselves in the rapidly changing international economy. The authors argue that the concept of middle power has continuing relevance in contemporary international relations theory, and they present a number of case studies to illustrate the changing nature of middle power behaviour.

This book examines the processes, practices and principles of defence planning in small and middle powers. Small and middle powers are recalibrating their force postures in this age of disruption. They are adapting their defence planning and military innovation processes to protect the security of their nations. The purpose of this book is to explore defence planning and military innovation in 11 contemporary case studies of small and middle powers in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Oceania. Employing a structured focused comparison framework, it traces patterns in the choices of small and middle powers across the following themes: (1) alliances, dependencies and national ambitions; (2) approaches, processes, methods and techniques; and (3) military innovation strategies and outcomes. Breaking new theoretical ground, it offers a three-pronged typology distinguishing between the strategic defence planner, the transactional defence planners and the complacent defence planner. The book offers a rich array of insights into cases that fall across different geographies, strategic cultures and governance systems. These insights can help guide discussions on how to structure decision-making structures, arrive at ambition levels, formulate priorities, select partners and design defence planning and military innovation processes. This book will be of much interest to students of defence studies, security studies, public policy and international relations, as well as to professionals in defence planning.