Going forward, Europe and middle powers would need to go beyond diplomacy to contribute meaningfully to peace operations, maritime security, and ensuring strate­gic stability and counterterrorism in their regions. This would mean not only financial contributions but also troop deployments, intelligence sharing, nuclear arms control, and operational coordination between European and other partners. The Iran war has exposed the practical challenges of Eu­rope looking beyond its traditional alignments and inter­ests and coalescing around peace along with middle powers from the Global South willing to take such a po­sition. With the exception of Spain, European powers have not opposed the war outright. Most have been par­tisan towards the US and Israel, with some, like the UK, also allowing the use of their military bases. While this aligns with the Arab middle powers in the Gulf who have been under attack from Iran, it remains a one-sided agenda that fails to offer a realistic path to a negotiated end to the conflict. Simultaneously, however, regional ac­tors such as Oman, Pakistan, Egypt, and Türkiye have re­portedly been trying to mediate a ceasefire behind the scenes, again pursuing their own self-interest to avoid a more widespread regional breakdown. This is the kind of fluidity the envisioned alternative path will have to deal with on a regular basis. However, Europe will have to de­cide whether it is willing to take the lead as a peacemak­er to prevent or end conflicts, or remain wedded to its old alignment on key issues, which regardless of its merits, will not allow it to garner respect and support from the majority of the Global South. The one other area that will retain critical importance in the evolving world order is nuclear nonproliferation. Re­ducing nuclear dangers through dialog, confidence-build­ing measures, and arms control could become an impor­tant feature of security cooperation between Europe and middle powers. As the current global security environ­ment stands, not only are arms control mechanisms be­tween the US and Russia suspended, important nucle­ar-armed middle powers such as India and Pakistan have also frozen all dialog, leaving this crisis-prone region on edge. In these contexts, Europe will have to consider as­suming the mediatory and crisis management roles that the US has performed to date if it is to emerge as a meaningful player. Broader nonproliferation challenges are also set to grow as multiple middle powers, both US allies(South Korea, Japan) and foes(Iran) demonstrate renewed interest in acquiring nuclear weapons. This is driven both by their fast-eroding faith in US extended de­terrence and the recognition that nuclear weapons ap­pear to be the only way of preventing war against a country in the crosshairs of global geopolitics. Will Eu­rope be able to retain its strong position on nuclear non­proliferation and keep the US, China, Russia, and some of its own members, such as France, focused on the larg­er nonproliferation agenda even as these countries seek to justify bolstering their own capabilities? Economic commitments would require opening markets and harmonizing regulations. This is essential to neutral­ize the impact of Hobbesian geoeconomics that seeks to disrupt supply chains and build walls to keep others out. Instead,“cooperative geoeconomics,” which aims to rec­reate positive economic interdependence among multiple countries through co-investments and stakes in supply chains, will have to be pursued even as the efficacy of the global trading regime under the liberal international order dwindles. Europe already has solid institutional frameworks for trade and business. Middle powers would need to demonstrate that they can provide the predicta­bility businesses and investors require within their own countries. Without formal rules, procedures, and norms, economic cooperation would remain superficial. There is already concern that the EU’s search for new trading partners is diluting value-based approaches to secure economic relationships. This is also true of bilater­al relations between China and a whole range of other countries including the UK, France, and Germany. While understandable as a short-term response to geopolitical pressures, critics argue that this erosion of principles in pursuit of partnerships represents a net negative for the global order. It suggests that even the remaining champi­ons of liberal norms may sacrifice them on the altar of geoeconomic necessity, accelerating rather than curbing the order’s dissolution. Instead, released from the imperative of slavishly follow­ing US leadership and needing genuine partnership with middle powers, Europe should fundamentally rethink how it engages on development, climate, and trade. Eu­rope’s current approach is based on its internal stand­ards, policies, and values. Without abandoning existing norms, it would need to be more accommodating to the context in which countries of the Global South operate. It would also need to go beyond bilateral trading arrange­ments and towards trade groupings with a maximum number of countries, including those who may not be fully politically aligned with Europe or may not get along with each other. This is vital to avoid isolating important middle powers who may seek to create countervailing blocs if they feel excluded because of their differences with Europe or their middle power rivals who happen to have better relations with European countries. To assume leadership of this“fourth path,” the European model of conditional lending and policy prescriptiveness will also need to give way to greater respect for recipient Is a Stable Middle Power Order Possible? 5