Author: Nick Bisley
Published: 24 September 2025
ISEAS Perspective 2025/72
In the post–Cold War years, middle-ranking states benefited from a benign international environment. Strategic stability, a global consensus about economic openness, and a reinvigorated UN system fostered multilateralism, expanding regional cooperation with the establishment of many institutions and processes, particularly in Asia.[1] The United States underpinned this order—providing a stable military framework for world politics, securing open sea lanes, and delivering international public goods—while generally exercising restraint, despite missteps such as the 2003 Iraq invasion. In this setting, power imbalances mattered less, multilateralism gave lesser powers a platform to shape the international environment and amplify their influence, and the rules-based order broadly served their interests.
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