The international system is becoming more multipolar, and power is dissipating from the great powers. However, amid intensifying competition between the United States and China, Russia’s confrontation with the West, growing economic threats and pressure, intensified regional tensions, and a more aggressive Global South, the capacity of any single bloc to set the agenda on all issues has become more limited. Lower-level powers can shape coalitions, exploit their strategic positions, and influence negotiations. The importance of contemporary middle powers is not that they dominate the system, but rather that they manipulate it. As a result, middle-power behavior has recently been approached more pragmatically, as a consequence of the interplay between internally determined motives of middle powers and externally imposed constraints.[1]

The central research question can be formulated as: “Is the capacity of middle powers to transact with the different sides in the great power competition a new source of geopolitical influence?” This insight tries to link the use of cross-camp connectivity to the advent of credible material and institutional capacities and sets this into a geopolitical context where it becomes a geopolitical lever. It is assessed by four criteria: brokerage access to competing actors, capacity to form coalitions, leverage of strategic relations, and noticeable crisis-management results. These indicators are markers for differentiating symbolic movements from influence that alters diplomatic possibilities or regional behavior.

The rise of middle powers

This influence is based on the process of multipolarity. The big powers vie with each other for diplomatic backing, access to markets, technological cooperation, military cooperation, and legitimation, but many lesser powers outside this direct rivalry do not depend exclusively on a single pole. Thus, a state can rely on one powerful partner for maritime security, another for energy, and several others through multilateral institutions. This kind of behavior exists in a more active form than traditional non-alignment, which involves simultaneous connections to rival centers. According to Munir and Safdar, omnidirectional hedging in the Indo-Pacific, for instance, describes the intensification of middle powers’ policies of diversifying security, economic, and diplomatic relationships to maximize strategic room for maneuver (SRM).[2]

When uncertainty is high, but there is no imminent threat causing a binary choice, it is easiest to maintain strategic autonomy. This allows middle powers to balance relationships, gain investment or defense advantages, and maintain choices. In response to intensifying threats, the issue of policy space may become more limited due to increased cohesion and the security dependence of the alliance. Without being economically resilient or equipped with credible defense options, a state can find that autonomy depends on the tolerance of its stronger partners. Middle power influence is consequently contingent: it can increase where competition creates demand for state cooperation, but decreases when threats are mounting or the dependencies are too unbalanced.[3]

India requires explicit classification because it is also described as a rising or aspiring great power. This study does not treat middle-power status as permanent and acknowledges India’s long-term great-power aspirations. It applies the category behaviorally and relationally. India is a nation with significant demographic, economic, military, and diplomatic weight, but lacks the system-wide rule-setting capability that great powers possess. It also demonstrates key features of middle power foreign policy, such as mediation, status-seeking, reformist multilateralism, and the pursuit of independence between poles of power. This classification is bounded and qualified by Jordaan’s distinction between traditional middle powers and emerging middle powers.[4]

Instruments of Influence

Diplomacy and Mediation

Influence, rather than material equality with great powers, can be achieved through diplomacy and mediation. Middle powers can specialize in crises in which larger powers generate suspicion, are directly involved, or are unable to communicate. Mediation is influential when a state can gain access to opponents, send them proposals, provide lucrative offers, and keep them engaged in a process they would otherwise be unable to access. Recent analysis has examined niche diplomacy and mediation by such middle powers in the Middle East in building regional authority and international recognition.[5]

Flexible partnerships and minilateralism

Another route to strategic value comes from flexible partnerships. Middle powers can form overlapping bilateral, minilateral, and multilateral foreign policy coalitions with different purposes rather than relying on a single arrangement. This is where India shines in the Quad with the United States, Japan and Australia, in addition to which its presence in BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) comes into play. One of the advantages of minilateralism is that smaller coalitions can achieve more tangible results more rapidly without compromising member autonomy regarding their threat perceptions and political interests.[6]

Military capability and geopolitical position

This is reflected in Türkiye, which provides a link between Europe and the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Middle East. It also plays a major role in defense planning in the region; its integration into NATO places it prominently in the regional defense architecture and gives it considerable military potential. The political leverage of geography is only created if the routes can be controlled, if control of geography can contribute to deterrence, or if the geography itself can influence military outcomes. The strategic location is thus not a source of influence in itself, but a means of gaining influence. In middle power agency, the synergy of material agency, regional positioning, and transactional diplomacy becomes more impactful, as exemplified in the case studies from the Eastern Mediterranean region.[7]

Selective Alignment and Strategic Autonomy

Selective alignment is another way through which middle powers play a role in political arrangements. India’s ties with the United States are a case in point: defense cooperation and technology have increased, but there is no formal alliance, and New Delhi maintains independent lines on Russia and multilateral issues. These limits of India-U.S. relations illustrate a broader model of partnership that preserves credible strategic options; equidistance by itself is not the recipe for durable influence.[8]

Middle powers as bridges between rival powers

The key analytical step is to treat connectivity as a source of power in its own right. In a fractured system, communication between different camps becomes less frequent, while a state with a trusted position on both can gain brokerage value. There is no need for traditional neutrality in such a bridging role. It could hold alliance obligations or security inclinations and, at the same time, send out offers, define red lines, and permit limited negotiation on the part of actors who cannot engage directly. The hybrid mediation model shows that interests can be national as well, alliances can be in place, and process flexibility can exist without all parties having to be equally distant from the mediator.[9]

A second, perhaps more significant, advantage to building a bridge is that rival actors will value an intermediary power with strategic importance, since other countries would have an incentive to maintain access to the value-added link. This leverage can influence defense cooperation and sanctions, investment, or institutional bargaining. A state that is too dependent in one area may lose its motivation to respond in others; too much ambiguity may be a liability on the political front. Strategic autonomy should not be judged by rhetoric but in terms of its dependencies. Türkiye is illustrative, as its autonomy-seeking has profited from multipolar opportunities but has been repeatedly limited by economic vulnerabilities and the tensions of alliances and domestic political agendas.[10]

Bridge states’ greatest vulnerability is pressure to choose sides. Great powers can call for sanctions, technology limitations, access rights for bases, and/or explicit security commitments, all of which can undermine credibility between the camps. This means that there needs to be a distinction between commitments and negotiable issues for successful bridge building. Türkiye’s reaction to the Russia-Ukraine conflict is a case in point: Ankara has not been uniformly aligned with Western sanctions while pursuing political and economic ties with Moscow, and has continued to play a key role in Ukraine’s security relations with NATO and the West. This mix enabled Türkiye to act as a mediator, albeit also more likely to be viewed with suspicion by partners. Strategic ambiguity can drive up influence as long as the gains from further engagement outweigh the costs of lost trust caused by partial alignment.[11]

Comparative case studies: India and Türkiye

India

Multi-alignment with structural weight is India’s principal instrument. New Delhi deepens ties with the United States, Japan, and Australia while maintaining defense and energy partnerships with Russia and membership in BRICS and the SCO in the Indo-Pacific. For this portfolio, diversification is key, with a collection of technological, security, market, and diplomatic engagements that would not allow for any single partner to dominate India’s external relations. It also makes India flexible in reacting to the U.S.-China and U.S.-Russia divisions rather than treating them as a single divide. India’s hedging, then, is a mixture of return maximization and risk contingency that has a focus on maintaining strategic choice in the face of uncertainty.[12]

Though there were differences of opinion on the Ukraine war, India was able to achieve consensus on the New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration, emphasizing the importance of development priorities in the Global South. Perhaps most importantly, the African Union became a permanent member of the G20, improving formal representation. India did not force the big powers to drop their differences, but it created a compromise that maintained the functioning of a major forum, with the connection of national status aspirations to the broader requirement for institutional reform. This evidence of influence is more concrete than rhetorical claims of leadership alone.[13]

India’s bridging capacity is, however, limited. It is also more securely aligned with the United States, driven in large measure by concern with China, which renders New Delhi less credible as a third-party mediator when Beijing is a key party. Multi-alignment can thus be imbalanced even if official policy is based on the principle of autonomy. In an accurate assessment, it is vital to distinguish the number of partnerships from the autonomy they provide. India exercises greater reach and influence where partners value its market, geopolitical weight, and Global South legitimacy, while it has a lesser reach in those areas where there is acute security rivalry, resulting in the exclusion of cross-camp brokerage.[14]

Türkiye

Türkiye’s approach is more focused, with brokerage being at its heart. Ankara’s diplomacy and its connections to Moscow, Kyiv and the capitals of the West allowed it to conduct high-value diplomacy during the Russia-Ukraine war, a role that many NATO countries could not perform. In some respects, the Black Sea Grain Initiative was the most obvious example, with Türkiye and the United Nations playing a pivotal role in developing a sea transit mechanism that allowed businesses to transport commercial food products from Ukrainian ports amidst the war. These were quantifiable “crisis management” results, rather than symbolic encounters. Türkiye could play such a role since neither NATO membership nor its connection with Russia shut down the other channel. Middle-power mediation requires cooperation from great powers, and the case evidence indicates that when the political climate constrains direct cooperation, demand for middle-power mediation increases.[15]

The relationship among alliance status, military power, and strategic autonomy further strengthens Türkiye’s influence. Even while supporting Ukraine, Ankara has kept defense ties with NATO and considered Russian expansion over the Black Sea as a threat while simultaneously maintaining economic ties with Russia and moderating its response to Russian policies. This behavior is neither uniformly pro-Russian nor pro-Western; it depends on the level of cohesion in the alliance, its domestic interests, and perceptions of threats. This versatility allows for bargaining opportunities as long as the benefits of cooperation outweigh the costs of divergence.[16]

Although Ankara has been pursuing a strategy to gain influence in its neighborhood, through projects like ‘Asia Anew’, far-flung ties are unlikely to generate the same leverage as relationships in the Black Sea, Eastern Mediterranean, and the Middle East, where Türkiye’s network of relationships is better developed and its security stakes stronger. This disparity reveals that the absence of great-power capabilities can be compensated for only by bridge-building. The state is most effective where (over time) geography, trade, defense connections, institutional presence, and diplomatic knowledge come together. The limits on Türkiye’s ability to connect successfully in this context reaffirm the notion that connectivity is not transformative but amplifies existing assets within structural limitations.[17]

Comparative Assessment

The comparison shows variation in profiles for the four indicators. India’s strengths lie in coalition-building and institutional bargaining, owing to its large market, its diplomatic engagement, and its participation in different forums. However, Türkiye fares better in terms of brokerage access to actors and rapid responses to crises driven by geography and cross-camp relations, which generate direct roles in outbreaks of conflict in the region. India’s strategic competition with China limits its neutrality despite its structural weight. Although greater economic capacity could strengthen Türkiye’s mediation profile, its mediation role cannot be taken for granted when conflicts emerge that involve alignment tensions and Türkiye’s overextension. The general rule is utility: middle powers will acquire influence if countries perceive they are useful for continuing access, cooperation, or mediation.[18]

Outlook and Conclusion

In the event of competitive multipolarity, middle powers will be likely to maintain influence, with a degree of room for maneuver that may differ depending on the issue and the crisis. A fragmented governance structure creates a greater need for partners that provide regional access, legitimacy, specialized capabilities, and communication, but it can also foster greater demands for exclusive alignment. Autonomy also becomes more sustainable through the presence of diversified trade, credible defense, institutional stability and capacity at home, and lower costs of resisting stronger states. This reflects both sides of middle-power agency: systemic competition can increase a state’s relevance, while economic and political constraints can reduce the stability and sustainability of its strategic options.[19]

In conclusion, relationships between competing camps are an important channel of geopolitical power, although not as important as material means of power. India and Türkiye demonstrate how middle powers can influence the balance of power in the region through diplomacy, coalition-building, bargaining leverage, and crisis-management outcomes. The strongest evidence emerges when the bridge-building exercise results not only in diverse connections but also in consensus or effective mediation. Thus, the answer to the research question is yes, the capacity of middle powers to transact with the different sides in the great power competition is a new source of geopolitical influence, but it must be qualified by the elements of credibility, usefulness in exerting strategic influence, and the presence of capabilities to counteract external pressure.[20]

References

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[1] Shin, S.-O., Alden, C., & Higgott, R. (2026).

[2] Munir, M., & Safdar, A. (2023).

[3] Fortier, M., & Massie, J. (2023).

[4] Jordaan, E. (2003).

[5] Priya, L., & Quamar, M. M. (2025).

[6] Joseph, B. S. (2025).

[7] Lavezzo, E. (2025).

[8] Abraham, J. C., & Purushothaman, U. (2024).

[9] Demirtas, T. (2026).

[10] Aydın-Düzgit, S., Kutlay, M., & Keyman, E. F. (2026).

[11] Ulas, G. (2026).

[12] Kara, M. (2025).

[13] Bery, S. (2024).

[14] Jaybhay, R. (2025).

[15] Mandıracı, B. (2026).

[16] Balta, E., & Bal, H. B. (2026).

[17] Üngör, Ç. (2025).

[18] Süsler, B., & Alden, C. (2026).

[19] Islam, M. N., & Nyadera, I. N. (2024).

[20] de Bhal, J. (2023).