Recent articles in an Asia-focused international policy forum suggest that states such as Australia, Canada and South Korea can join up with other middle powers to secure the maritime order and restore the liberal international order. While well meaning and encouraging, the unfortunate truth is that these tasks are beyond the capacity of middle powers. The smartest ones won’t even try. Maritime security has transformed from a permissive environment dominated by uncontested naval supremacy into a...
The “unravelled” post-Cold War international order has created conditions that appear to mirror those preceding a great-power conflict, a former senior adviser to the White House has warned. “The international landscape … [is] beginning to look uncomfortably like a pre-war environment,” said Thomas Wright, who served as senior director for strategic planning at the US National Security Council in the Joe Biden administration. “A familiar pattern is taking shape,” Wright said on Wednesday at an...