The Rise of Geopolitical Pivot States

The leading middle powers of the Global South today have more agency than any time since the end of World War II. These are countries that have significant leverage in geopolitics but are less powerful than the world’s leading powers—the US and China. Their numbers include India, Brazil, Turkey, Indonesia, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia. These pivot states are nonaligned, highly transactional and self-interested, and free to create new power dynamics. All six of them are members of the G-20 and active in both geopolitics and geoeconomics. These powers have become and will continue to become more powerful geopolitically. A better understanding of pivot states’ strategic interests, priorities, and leverage has thus become essential for predicting the trajectory of the shifting geopolitical environment. The Capstone team will work with Eurasia Group to determine the relationship of the pivot states with both China and the US, analyze the unique leverage they each have vis-à-vis the two blocs, compare their relative strategic importance to them, and tease out potential concessions they might be able to extract from China and the US.