“Sorry, Shorty”. After the US-China G2, the opportunity for middle powers

Fans of westerns remember the scene well, from “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” (by Sergio Leone). There is Clint Eastwood, the Man with No Name, there is Shorty, the condemned man. And there is a cynical but precise deal: Shorty climbs onto the scaffold, Eastwood collects the bounty and, at the very last second, shoots the rope to save his life. The mechanism works until Tuco, played by Eli Wallach, enters the scene and prevents him from honoring the agreement.
The rope is not cut. Shorty dies. The line remains there, cold and brutal: “Sorry, Shorty.”

After the latest summit between the United States and China, it is possible that Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and, indirectly, Vietnam and the Philippines felt something similar. Not the feeling of having been abandoned, at least not yet. But something subtler: the awareness that when Washington and Beijing sit at the same table, the fate of others can become part of the negotiation.

The summit produced many political signals, many images and few real breakthroughs. According to available accounts, there were no decisive results on Taiwan, Iran or artificial intelligence. Trump spoke of possible trade agreements on oil, soybeans and Boeing aircraft, but offered few concrete details; Xi reaffirmed the centrality of Taiwan for Beijing; Washington stated that nothing had changed in American policy, while the issue of new arms sales to Taipei remains open. It is precisely in this ambiguity that the problem becomes visible.

We are not facing a new Yalta. There is no formal division of the world into rigid blocs. But there is something more modern: a managed tension between great powers, in which cooperation and competition coexist. Allies remain important, but they can also become bargaining chips. Guarantees remain, but their price changes. Stability is pursued not as a shared order, but as a balance among interests.

For Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines, the risk is clear: being central in the rhetoric of a free and open Indo-Pacific, yet peripheral when the great powers truly negotiate.

Interdependence is no longer enough

For years, we believed that economic interdependence was a guarantee of peace. More trade, more investment, more global value chains: therefore fewer wars, fewer blackmails, fewer crises. It was a reassuring idea. But an incomplete one.

Today we know that interdependence does not eliminate conflict. It transforms it. Tanks and missiles are not always necessary. Sometimes it is enough to hit a port, reroute a shipping lane, block a semiconductor, manipulate a dataset, disrupt a cable, drive up insurance premiums, restrict access to a technology or use trade as political leverage.

The economy is no longer only about growth: it is power. Logistics is no longer only about efficiency: it is security. Technology is no longer only about innovation: it is sovereignty. Finance is no longer only capital: it is strategic capability.

The US-China summit confirms this. Washington and Beijing are not only discussing tariffs, soybeans, oil or aircraft. They are negotiating the shape of global dependencies: who buys from whom, who can replace whom, who can slow whom down, who can withstand a crisis better. The real negotiating table is not only diplomatic. It is economic, industrial, logistical and technological.

The opportunity for middle powers

If the world is once again being dominated by great powers, middle powers cannot simply hope for the goodwill of allies or the moderation of rivals. It is not enough to be friends with the United States, not enough to trade with China, not enough to declare neutrality. In the new environment, neutrality may protect against formal war, but not against economic blackmail, an energy crisis, technological dependency or the manipulation of supply chains.
There is another possible answer: building an alliance of interdependencies.

Not a new ideological bloc, not an Asian NATO, not a bureaucratic structure. Rather, a network of middle powers capable of making themselves mutually indispensable: Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Singapore, India and, on some issues, other key countries in Latin America and the Indo-Pacific. Not all together, not all at the same level, not all on the same dossiers. But within a shared logic: transforming individual vulnerability into collective resilience.
A middle power on its own can be blackmailed. A well-organized network of middle powers becomes far harder to intimidate.
This is the economic deterrence of the twenty-first century. It is not based only on military threat. It is based on the capacity to make every act of coercion too costly, too complex and too damaging even for those who exercise it. If striking Taiwan means disrupting not only a semiconductor supply chain, but also industrial agreements with Europe, Japan, Korea, Canada and Australia, the cost rises. If blocking a route means damaging ports, insurance, energy, shipbuilding, agrifood and defense across many countries, the cost rises. If manipulating a supply chain means losing access to markets, standards, technologies and capital, the cost rises. Interdependence, when left alone, is fragility. When politically governed, it can become deterrence.

Why a European pillar of NATO is necessary

Within this new geography, the European pillar of NATO is no longer a slogan. It is a necessity. It does not mean breaking away from the United States. That would be naive and dangerous. It means making the Alliance more credible because it is less unbalanced. It means that Europe must be able to bring to NATO not only bases, budgets and declarations, but industry, technology, stockpiles, shipbuilding, cybersecurity, protection of critical infrastructure, maritime security, ammunition, space, energy and economic intelligence.
The war in Ukraine has shown the cost of military dependency. US-China competition shows the cost of technological dependency. The crises in the Red Sea, the Gulf, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean show the cost of logistical and energy dependency.
NATO is no longer only an Euro-Atlantic issue. Its dialogue with Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand shows that Atlantic security and Indo-Pacific security are now connected. Industrial and military cooperation between European countries and South Korea, as in the case of the agreements with Poland, also shows that this convergence has already begun.
And this is where Canada becomes decisive. Not only as a historic ally, but as a hinge between the Atlantic, the Arctic and the Pacific. Canada has natural resources, critical raw materials, energy, technological capabilities, NATO membership and an Indo-Pacific projection. It is a natural partner for building a network between Europe and Asia’s middle powers.
Italy should look at this possibility very carefully. Not out of geopolitical rhetoric, but out of material interest. We are a manufacturing, processing and exporting country. We depend on maritime routes, energy, raw materials, foreign markets, technologies and the stability of the Mediterranean. If the world organizes itself around great powers negotiating over the heads of others, Italy cannot afford to remain a spectator.

What an alliance of interdependencies means

An alliance of interdependencies is not an abstract formula. It is a concrete program.
It means mapping vulnerabilities: semiconductors, energy, ports, undersea cables, raw materials, software, pharmaceuticals, insurance, logistics, payment systems. It means creating intelligent redundancies: not duplicating everything, because that would be impossible and extremely expensive, but understanding what cannot be missing and building credible alternatives. It means co-investing: not only talking about cooperation, but jointly financing factories, stockpiles, refining plants, data centers, critical infrastructure, ports, shipyards, energy networks and cyber defense.
It also means creating common standards on AI, data security, foreign investments, supply chains, critical infrastructure, industrial traceability and protection of strategic sectors. And it means building trusted markets: not autarky, not closure, but selective and secure openness, in which companies from partner countries know that, in a crisis, there is a network capable of guaranteeing continuity, priority access and protection.
This is how the economy becomes an architecture of peace.

Taiwan is not only Taiwan

Taiwan is the most visible symbol, but it is not the only issue. Japan fears instability in the East China Sea. South Korea lives between the North Korean threat, technology and industrial dependency. The Philippines is under pressure in the South China Sea. Vietnam trades with China, but fears its maritime projection. Singapore knows that its prosperity depends on open routes, rules and stability. Australia has already experienced the cost of trade coercion. Canada sees the strategic weight of the Arctic, the Pacific, energy and raw materials growing.

All these countries have something in common: they are too important to be neutral, but too small to determine the global balance alone. This is the condition of middle powers. And, ultimately, it is also Europe’s condition.

The real opportunity after the US-China G2 is to transform the fear of being “Shorty” into a network in which no one can be left alone on the scaffold.

Peace runs through the economy

The point is not to prepare for war. The point is to build an economy that makes war less convenient.
Peace today is not defended only with treaties, aircraft carriers or military bases. It is also defended with resilient ports, redundant cables, secure semiconductors, diversified energy, transparent finance, robust insurance, traceable supply chains, reliable data, intelligent stockpiles and integrated industrial capabilities. It is defended by building alliances not only among armies, but among economies.
This is the shift Italy must understand. National security is no longer only about defense or diplomacy. It concerns companies, banks, ports, insurers, universities, energy, logistics, technology, research and public opinion. The new order will not be written only in summit communiqués. It will be written in supply contracts, industrial consortia, digital standards, maritime corridors, insurance clauses and funds for critical infrastructure. Whoever controls these nodes controls the freedom of movement of states.

Italy and the network of middle powers

For Italy, the strategy should be clear: strengthen the European pillar of NATO; build a common agenda with Canada on critical raw materials, the Arctic, energy, cyber resilience and supply chains; intensify relations with Japan and South Korea on defense, shipbuilding, semiconductors, batteries, AI and dual-use technologies; open a more structured dialogue with Vietnam, the Philippines, Singapore and Indonesia on routes, ports, logistics and industrial resilience; connect the Mediterranean and the Indo-Pacific as parts of the same strategic chain. Because for Italy, Suez, Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, the Red Sea, Taiwan and the South China Sea are not distant theaters. They are segments of the same economy. A crisis in Taiwan can stop industrial components in Lombardy, Veneto, Emilia-Romagna and Piedmont. A crisis in the Red Sea can increase time and costs for Italian companies. A crisis in the Gulf can hit energy, inflation and competitiveness.
The world is no longer divided between “here” and “there”. It is a network. And in a network, geographical distance matters less than functional dependency.

Do not wait for someone else to shoot the rope

The lesson of the US-China summit is not that the United States is no longer reliable or that China is now invincible. That would be a banal conclusion.
The lesson is different: those who do not build their own capabilities become variables in the strategies of others.
“Sorry, Shorty” is the line one hears when one’s security depends entirely on someone else’s gunshot.
The answer is not to give up alliances. It is to make them denser, more distributed, more industrial, more technological, more reciprocal. It is to build a network of middle powers in which no one is isolated enough to be sacrificed and no great power can assume that the cost of coercion will remain limited.
After the US-China G2, the great opportunity is this: to stop choosing between Washington and Beijing as if the world were a waiting room for great powers. And to start building, together with other middle powers, a real infrastructure of stability.
An alliance of interdependencies.
Because peace in the twenty-first century will not be guaranteed only by those who possess more weapons. It will also be guaranteed by those who know how to make every form of blackmail more costly, more complex and less convenient.
And by those who, at the decisive moment, will not have to wait for someone else to shoot the rope.