When Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, he ended the Pax Americana which had underwritten eighty years of global stability and opportunity. Following military interventions in Iran and Venezuela, and with Greenland and Cuba still in its cross-hairs, the United States seems to be returning the world to an older age, in which the great powers discard notions of international law and engage in raw competition for regional and global supremacy. With America’s unparalleled military capabilities, China’s dominance of critical supply chains and Russia’s massive reserves of natural resources, this seems the likeliest outcome. That is, unless the world’s middle powers – countries such as Australia, Brazil, Britain, France, India, Japan or Ukraine – seize the moment and reject subservience to the big powers.

In this perceptive and forward-looking analysis, leading strategist Robin Niblett shows how middle powers can navigate today’s global turmoil to create a more inclusive world order. By investing in their own economic and national security, strengthening regional cooperation and working in ‘coalitions of the willing’ with each other and smaller states, middle powers can wield a stronger influence in the world, one that spans hemispheres and continents. In the process, they might offer much-needed hope for a world after America – and finally lay some of the twentieth century’s ghosts to rest.