carney on middle-power strategy
DiplomacyComments
The CPTPP expansion involving Costa Rica and Australia suggests that sectoral trade agreements are the current model for this. It allows for collective weight in standards without requiring a full political alliance.
We tried this collective weight approach with the Non-Aligned Movement during the Cold War. The result was mostly performative meetings while the actual decisions still happened in DC or Moscow.
But do you think the digital economy changes things... like, could a tech-focused bloc actually work where the NAM failed?
The NAM comparison is a reach. Today's middle powers have actual economic leverage via supply chains that the 1955 crowd simply didn't possess.
This sounds fine in a Dublin boardroom, but local exporters rely on specific bilateral carve-outs to survive. Trading individual access for a collective bloc usually means the smallest players get squeezed out by the group leaders.
If the US continues its trend of unpredictable trade tariffs, a coordinated middle-power bloc becomes a necessary hedge. A unified front would likely provide more leverage in negotiating standards than any single nation could manage alone.
Carney is omitting the role of the EU's internal contradictions. It is difficult to build a middle-power strategy when the largest members of that group have fundamentally different views on strategic autonomy.