everywhere else. The rules cannot be lopsided. The wars the US and NATO allies have participated in under US leadership have resulted in a lot of death and destruc­tion. The hypocrisy of Europe’s outcry over Ukraine while it turns a blind eye to the horrors of Gaza and, fails to play a constructive role in seeking off-ramps in the war in Iran has further damaged Europe’s credibility in the Glob­al South. Europe can offer a mea culpa by ensuring that its normative standards for wars are no longer selective. This would mean accepting that sovereignty has limits— not just in the interventionist sense that marked the US­led neoliberal order at its worst, but in the sense that re­gional stability requires neighbors’ interests to be re­spected and agreed rules to be observed. What might hold it back? The incentives for the US and China to support this al­ternative path are real. For Washington, a Europe-middle power framework would preserve Western influence without requiring it to bear the main costs. It would maintain access to global markets and institutions while allowing a focus on the Indo-Pacific. For Beijing, such an arrangement would prevent the consolidation of a US­led bloc against China while providing access to Europe­an technology and the markets of the Global South. Re­cent visits to Beijing by various European leaders signal that this has been recognized. This approach would also allow Beijing to claim that the spirit of President Xi Jian­ping’s“Community with a Shared Future for Mankind” is preserved in this framework. That said, the limits of great power support for the envi­sioned alternative path are equally clear. The United States will not accept arrangements that exclude it from Europe or that empower actors aligned with China to un­dermine American interests. A case in point is Trump’s outburst after the recent visits to Beijing by Carney and British prime minister Keir Starmer. For its part, China will not accept frameworks that lock in Western institutional advantages or that constrain its behavior in ways it con­siders unacceptable. The space for the Europe-middle power coalition lies precisely in the gap between these red lines. Most fundamentally, the scenario assumes that great powers will tolerate autonomous initiative. The dawn of a global“technology-curtain” alone could divide the world into great power camps. More broadly, a US ad­ministration determined to reassert hegemony, or a Chi­na convinced that it cannot reach a trade and tech deal with Europe or accept Europe’s security and regulatory benchmarks, could also act to reduce the space for mid­dle power agency. Europe already has a trade problem with China. The growing trade deficit is unsustainable, and Europe has determined that it has been caused by a massive surge of heavily subsidized Chinese imports— particularly electric vehicles, solar panels, and steel— flooding the EU market. The EU has also accused China of restricting European firms’ access to its markets. It is unclear whether the EU can find an accommodation with China rather than pursuing trade defense tools, in­cluding tariffs. Europe also has its weaknesses in this context. Its capac­ity to anchor such an order has clear limits. Europe’s in­ternal divisions, particularly between Atlanticist and au­tonomist forces, and its cumbersome procedures to achieve consensus could prevent coherent action. Euro­pean military power, while significant in aggregate, re­mains fragmented and dependent on US strategic ena­blers. European demographic decline constrains long­term dynamism. European attachment to values, however diluted in practice, complicates relationships with powers that reject those values. And European prox­imity to a revisionist Russia means that the continent’s attention will primarily be drawn eastward, limiting stra­tegic focus elsewhere. The outcome of the Ukraine war remains uncertain, but how it ends will determine the size of the“Russia problem” moving forward. The bigger it is, the less Europe will be able to play the critical role envisioned for it in pursuit of the Europe-middle power scenario. And then there is the question of Europe’s own political future. The rise in various countries of far-right parties that have ideological affinities with the MAGA move­ment in the US not only threatens Europe’s current inte­grative efforts, but could also lead the continent’s far­right forces to actively oppose the very values the EU stands for and is trying to protect. Far-right parties such as Germany’s Alternative for Ger­many(AfD), France’s National Rally, and Hungary’s Fidesz aim to reverse European integration, returning power from Brussels back to national governments. These parties generally reject further political federaliza­tion of the EU. While some previously pushed for their countries to leave the EU, the current trend is to trans­form it into a purely economic, intergovernmental body. Across the board, however, they oppose the EU’s climate agenda(Green Deal) and call for strict immigration poli­cies and the promotion of traditional, nationalist, or con­servative values. Lastly, middle powers’ diverse interests and rivalries(In­dia-Pakistan, Brazil-Argentina, Nigeria-South Africa, Saudi Arabia-UAE) could preclude coalition formation. Middle powers of the Global South have longed for a Is a Stable Middle Power Order Possible? 7