Opinions

From Rules to Rulers: How Personalist Power Politics Is Squeezing Middle Powers

By Miras Zhiyenbayev on 12 January 2026

For three decades after the Cold War, many governments behaved as if the “rules-based order” were a durable infrastructure: imperfect, selective, often hypocritical – but still an infrastructure. It set expectations about trade, borders, sanctions, alliance commitments, and the legitimacy of institutions. That baseline is eroding, and not only...