Journal Article

The prospects of small states in the Age of Trump

DIIS researcher publishes in the IISS flagship 'Survival'

The end of unipolarity and advent of multipolarity has encouraged the creation of spheres of interest, both because the great powers cannot afford each other as permanent adversaries (may need each other in a future situation) and because Western value-promotion has been downgraded or disappeared. With the election of Donald Trump all three major powers – USA, China & Russia - play pure geopolitics with zero regard for universal values. With weakened international institutions, this generally reduces the influence of the smaller powers, and friendlier great power relations will reinforce this tendency. Still, some small states are becoming much more exposed than others, depending on their location.

Thus, there are logically four main reactions to an emerging US-Russia friendship. US allies will choose one of two options:

  • denial of the new situation and desperate attempts to please their big ally by additional defense spending (fear of abandonment) or
  • movement towards an equidistant posture between the great powers (although hardly leaving the alliance).

Small powers located in the solidified Russian sphere of interest are worse off; they will need to come to terms with their neighbouring great power (maybe after a short period of defiance). This will, at best, take the form of:

  • Finlandisation or, at worst,
  • imposed domination in the form of the establishment of a puppet regime.

DIIS Experts

Hans Mouritzen
Foreign policy and diplomacy
Senior Researcher
+45 32698790
The prospects of small states in the Age of Trump
Small states and Finlandisation in the age of Trump
Survival, 59, 67-84, 2017