The intensification of great-power competition is a symptom of the deepening crisis of the US-led, rules-based international order. Imperfect as this order was, the post-Second World War period - and especially the post-Cold War era - provided an historically significant degree of stability, peace, economic integration and prosperity, particularly within the US sphere of influence. Its erosion is contributing to growing global disorder, with smaller states often paying the highest price.
Georgia offers an early example. Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008, followed by the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, illustrates how inadequate responses to aggression against smaller states can encourage further challenges to the international order. Yet small states are not necessarily passive victims of great-power competition. They can acquire strategic value by serving as providers of connectivity, offering strategically important goods, resources or infrastructure, and occupying geopolitical positions that make their independence valuable to major powers.
The discussion will therefore examine how small states can preserve agency in an increasingly fragmented international system - and how they can transform geographical vulnerability into strategic relevance, making their sovereignty and security a shared interest rather than a matter of great-power indifference.
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