This news is a stark reminder of the dangerous world we now live in. This is particularly true for the majority of the world’s states who identify as small. Of 193 members of the United Nations, 108 have joined the body’s Small States Forum.
These actors tend to be among the most vocal in supporting international efforts to address climate change and sustainable development. They are also active supporters of humanitarian action, UN peacekeeping, and other diplomatic initiatives to maintain peace and resolve wars.
Yet there also exists a widespread perception that when it comes to security and defence, small states are weak, especially compared to their bigger counterparts.
One reason for this view is that during the 19th and 20th centuries smaller states found it extremely difficult to shape or even contribute to decision-making on war and peace. This was very evident during the Cold War in the second half of the 20th century. Even though the number of smaller states increased greatly in these years due to decolonisation, their influence on geopolitics was minimal.
Rather, the US and the Soviet Union with their big populations, armies, territories and seemingly unlimited appetites for mutual confrontation, were in many ways the sole actors of importance in an international system defined by superpower competition.
It is also the case that even up to the present day, small states rely much less than bigger actors on the use of force as an instrument of foreign policy. They almost always avoid challenging larger actors militarily. Instead, they look to settle their differences through regional or international mediation frameworks or under international law.
In the post-Cold War era, "soft power” – a term coined in 1990 – became a cause du jour. It describes the use of persuasion and attraction rather than force to gain influence. Small states, already major supporters of the UN Charter and international law, took advantage of the age of soft power to become leading advocates of multilateral diplomacy and global governance.
The erosion of the rules-based international order in recent years has incentivised bigger states to pursue their geopolitical interests through hard power means, including military force. The US removal of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro last January is one high profile example of this growing tendency.
Two much more significant examples are the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the US decision to go all in militarily and back Israel’s attempt at regime change in Iran. Both have tested the extent that smaller states can use soft power to shape norms, prevent conflict, and deter hostile opponents.
Soft power certainly carries much less weight than it did even a decade ago. It is also a lot harder for smaller states to convert their moral authority into status in geopolitics. This undoubtedly complicates their efforts to achieve security at home and influence abroad.
In the current "might is right” strategic environment many smaller states are responding to the threats they face by buying more weapons than ever before.
But even rich small states cannot compete with the big players who make up the top five military spenders of 2026 – the US, China, Russia, Germany, and India. Between them they have spent between $1.56tn to $1.78tn on weapons systems, equivalent to 58% of the year’s total global military spending.
Apart from economic and financial constraints, the military and defence sectors of small states also lag behind these big powers because of a lack of human capital. They have fewer people to recruit into conventional armed forces. There are also less homegrown experts available to work in domestic defense industries developing indigenous weapons systems.
These limitations aside, as the GCC states have demonstrated in recent months, smaller states that are adaptable, act rapidly, and have high levels of social cohesion can effectively defend their sovereignty and national interests from attack during war.
One of the most notable reasons for this in recent decades is the growing focus in small state militaries of policies that prioritize the concentration, professionalisation and specialisation of military units.
Having specific military prowess in a narrow area can often enable small states to build resilience and distinguish their identity in the military domain from larger actors. It can also open the way for small states to build a military brand where the main marker is not size but being smart and innovative.
Finland has constructed a military identity based on social cohesion and strategic planning. This has helped it to transform smallness into strength even in comparison to its much bigger Russian neighbour. As the Chief of the Finnish Defence Forces warned shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, "we are a superpower of counter-mobility measures”.
Estonia has used its excellent STEM education system – number one in Europe and in the top 10 globally in both science and mathematics – to gain geopolitical standing. In 2008 the Estonian capital, Tallinn, was chosen as Nato’s Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence.
In the increasingly fractured and dangerous world we inhabit, small state vulnerabilities are very real. But even in this environment it is outdated and counterproductive to simply think about small states as weak states.
They can still overcome size-related difficulties to protect their values and maximize their security in a rapidly changing strategic environment. Doing so, however, requires a re-imagining of soft power to deal with the hard power realities they now face.
- The writer is professor of International Politics and Director of the Small States and Energy Studies Programs at Georgetown Univeristy in Qatar @RoryDavidMiller