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The world just needs to be multilateral-enough
Small states are traditionally viewed as norm-takers in the international system, the same way that in economics, consumers and firms are price-takers. However, while in economics there is a theorem that says price-taking in markets leads to systemic efficiency, the study of world order admits no analogous proposition.
So, whether at central banks roundtables or neighbourhood coffeeshop conversations, even as discussions range widely and organically, when I discuss small states navigating the new world disorder, I seek to communicate three points consistently:
1. Accept the new world disorder. The old world order was rules-based and multilateral but also imperfect. Now and then, it allowed Great Powers to do things they should have asked permission for beforehand or at least forgiveness for afterwards. But for all its faults, the old world order pointed everyone in the direction of three valuable traits of rules-based multilateralism: (1) a level playing field; (2) commitment to peaceful dispute resolution; and (3) cooperation in the face of common challenges. The new world disorder gives up on all three. If for us those properties matter, we do not have to ask to bring back the old world order. Instead, we need only to ask how we get the world multilateral-enough.
2. World order is now well past US-China-rivalrymaxxing. Conventional geostrategic competition is no more the apex disruptor of the international system. Continuing to fetishize that only holds back progress. During the US-Soviet Cold War, political and economic ideologies were in such opposition that ordinary people everywhere understood how their entire way of life and system of government would change if the other side won. Today, between China and the US there do not exist any such separating hyperplanes: now the trope is fringe, not mainstream, that one side represents democracy and freedom, while the other, totalitarianism and tyranny. Instead, more relevant, world order is hit by an interlinked, correlated set of three significant shocks. Not only is multilateralism fraying---states large and small now practice industrial policy not to improve themselves, but to keep others down---states are facing both a China Shock and a US Shock. You don't have to reject the theory of comparative advantage to believe there's a China Shock; you don't have to think the US is evil to believe there's a US Shock (but the version of it that you do see depends on whether you live and work outside or inside the US).
3. Not everyone has to be part of the new, multilateral-enough world. Incentive-compatible, multilateral-enough coalitions should of course be open and inclusive, but they do not have to be universalist. The world can live with flexible topologies, and might even be more resilient for doing so. Inadvertent cooperation will be a stronger bond than rule-of-law contracts that can be broken when states find it in their interest to do so. In this G-minus world, alignment, acquiescence, and adaptation and mitigation are three classes of strategies by which we can try to build a multilateral-enough world.
Reference Quah, D. 2026. "The Rest of Us: Incentives, not Power, in Rebuilding World Order", LKYSPP Working Paper (Apr).
