 Good afternoon or evening or good morning depending on where in the world you're joining us from. I'm Alex Stark. I'm a senior researcher at New America and I'm thrilled to be welcoming you to this event today. So it's the second in a series that we're co-hosting with the Bridging the Gap project, whose mission is to promote scholarly contributions to public debate and decision making on global challenges and US foreign policy. And our aim through this partnership is to really dig into the substance and the policy implications of cutting edge new research in the field and to bring it to a wider audience. And so we're just thrilled to be working with them on this. Today we're going to be doing just that with a talk by Tom Long. I'm going to turn it over now to our moderator Jim Goldgeier, who's a senior advisor of Bridging the Gap. And among many other illustrious roles that he has held in the past and currently he's a Robert Bosch senior visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor of international relations at the School of International Service at American University where he served as dean from 2011 to 2017. So thanks so much everyone and take it away Jim. Thanks so much Alex and Bridging the Gap so excited to be able to partner with New America on this initiative and really grateful to Alex and to Heather Hurlborg for that opportunity to partner and we are showcasing a new release in the Oxford University Press Bridging the Gap book series and that is Tom Long, a small states guide to influence in world politics and just wonderful to welcome Tom, as well as two other panelists who work on important small initiatives, Emily Wilkinson and Wazeem Mola. Tom is an associate professor of politics and international studies at the University of Warwick. Wazeem is assistant director of the Caribbean Initiative at the Atlantic Councils Adrian Arshed Latin America Center and non-resident scholar at Florida International University's Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy. And Emily's a senior research fellow at ODI, a director of the resilient and sustainable islands initiative and chief scientific advisor of the climate resilience execution agency for Domenica. So just welcome to the panel and congratulations Tom again on the book it's it's a great and much needed read. Thank you. As you point out when we study international relations were often taught study the great powers I'm particularly mindful of that because I did my PhD at UC Berkeley and Ken Waltz was on my dissertation committee and took his classes on international relations and that's what we focused on we focused on the great powers and you know his argument that they dominate and shape the international system is why we did that but as you point out in your book the vast majority of states are small and your book does a great job showing that these states aren't just the objects of great power politics but these states can have influence and you walk us through security issues economic issues environmental issues. And it's particularly great the way you do these comparisons with showing why some states have been more effective than others in trying to get what they want in the international system. So let's just start by just saying it just in addition to, you know, putting more international studies attention on these countries. What do you consider to be some of the most important takeaways for scholars and policymakers from this book. Thank you so much Jim for this invitation to the teams that new American bridging the gap for making this happen and also to a Zeme and Emily for joining us and and for everyone, everyone who is who is watching. So, to think about some of the takeaways for this book. First of all, exactly as you said Jim sort of the overarching point is is simple which is that small states. So I think the dynamics of asymmetrical relations the relationships between large and small states deserve much more attention than they often often receive. And, you know, as your anecdote about about Kenneth Waltz points out, you know, I think, particularly when we think about the way that international relations is taught, and the way that the Anglo American IR canon has been constructed small states are mostly invisible. I don't want to overstate that point of course there is a lot of research and great research on these questions, but often it's sort of relegated to to niche discussions. So, you know, I want to I guess start by by making a case for why I think small states matter to IR and then give a few takeaways for for policy policymakers as well. I guess, first of all, and following Waltz's influential example, the fields case selection has been overly focused on on great powers and, you know, great powers are obviously very important but they're also by their nature kind of outliers. And so this is really skewed the basis of IRs IRs theorizing. So looking at small states is is crucial for diversifying the empirical basis of IR and for developing more sort of comprehensive international relations theory. That's true if we think about small states is kind of units of analysis but what I'm going to argue is that we actually need to think about about relationships and so when we think about international relationships. And it's a small portion of those relationships that are kind of small that are sort of symmetrical relations amongst great powers. It's that many more of those relationships are asymmetrical. And I think that that really, that really matters for how we understand international relations. You know, and this is another place where I would sort of diverge from that structural reading of of international politics is that policymakers care a lot about small states and asymmetrical relationships if we look at the policymakers even in great powers, they dedicate a lot of time and attention and resources to small states, often small states kind of in there in their geographical vicinity. And the third reason is that small states have been called sort of a canary in the coal mine. And that's true and this is something that that certainly I think Emily can add quite a lot to in the same as well. But that's certainly true when we think about the effects of climate change on small island developing states. And that's also true when we think about questions of international order. When international order starts to change or norms international norms around say sovereignty or participation, or, or territorial conquest. If those norms begin to road it's often going to be small states who notice it first. So a related message for IR and how we study IR is kind of to take asymmetry seriously, and to think about the roles of smaller actors and how they constitute relationships and international order. There's a need to go beyond this idea of great powers as system determining. And so I'd say that the book really tries to think about power and influence and in more nuanced ways. And finally, the final point about about the kind of how we study IR this book is obviously positioned in the literature on small states, and there is a lot of work on that and I've incurred a lot of a lot of debts to smaller to scholars who work on small states. However, the work on small states has often been kind of scattered for a long time. It was very heavily focused on on on European small states, following Peter Katzenstein's example his influential early work on this. And that's been changing and there is a growing body of literature on small states around the world. But a lot of times this has led to kind of limited theoretical accumulation and theory building because small states when we think about the small state as as a category. It's been that includes so many states that are so different, different geographies different levels of development. Obviously there's no clear cut definition in terms of what the size of a small state is. And that's made it really hard to develop theories of small state behavior. And so the purpose of the literature this books of takeaway and contribution is to shift from looking at small states as kind of small like units, and to look at patterns in relationships, instead, and to do that looking across diverse regions and issues for policy makers. So the takeaways are sort of set on on two levels. First, there's, there's a broader takeaway, which is that, which is about how small states gain influence and that's that relationship and context really matters that small states influence needs to be seen in light of small states specific goals. And obviously definitely not always going to win, but that when we look at small states influence in this light, there are more opportunities than than might appear at first glance, can more concretely and this is really set of tools that the book tries to provide for for policy makers, the book sets out this sort of these analytical tools that depart from a couple of premises. The first is that is this idea about small states goals, and assessing them concretely in terms of what small states are trying to achieve instead of assuming that small states have goals that are similar to larger states that is the pursuit of power or, or perhaps autonomy. So thinking about small states goals in that way. Secondly, that small states goals and their international positions are often heavily shaped by a handful of relationships and that those relationships are often the most cement the most salient ones are often asymmetrical. By assessing those relationships and thinking about the dynamics of asymmetry policy makers can better identify patterns of opportunities and constraints. So those tools focus on kind of what I refer to as a scorecard that can be used to assess a particular case and cases in this book or try and try to construct them in a way that I hope is in a useful to to policy makers. Which is that they're focused, not on kind of one particular small state trying to achieve influence on on everything, but instead, the pursuit of a particular goal in particular relationships. Looking at those cases the scorecard hopefully allows policy makers to assess what type of case they're in, in a sense and what kinds of strategies might might apply in that type of case. I focus on the degree of policy divergence, how salient this issue is particularly for kind of relevant larger powers that that could also be applied to international organizations. So I'm wondering how cohesive are the preferences of different states and in that case, looking across those factors. The book offers a typological theory can eight different types of cases, and then offers some some some some explanations about opportunities and constraints in those cases, and what types of strategies might be most effectively pursued, depending on on the type of case. That's great. Thank you so much so so Emily and was in just wanted to turn to you here and just ask how the kinds of things that Tom has done in this book. How does how do these things help you with the work you're each doing on small state policies what what are sort of the things that that as you read as you read the book that you might have thought to yourself oh this is a useful thing for me for my own work as I move forward Emily we will start with you. Thanks very much and thanks. Thanks, Tom for sharing the book and advanced copy with me and I very much enjoyed reading it. I think the first thing to say is it kind of, it was great to read and found it very affirming of the kind of approach that we want to take with this resilient and sustainable violence initiative, which is looking at the relationship with focus particularly on small island developing states, and the, the international system, particularly access to finance the debt situation and looking at sits in that context and not so much putting the sort of blame if you like why sits are not able to respond to the difficult situation in which they find them particularly in the context of climate change by in making improvements in their own domestic governance so it's often. There's there's quite a, an important focus in in the literature and in the kind of policy arena on climate change around national planning. There's actually driven approaches, improving or enhancing that their capacity to be able to, to, to respond to climate change impacts to develop adaptation plans to develop kind of resilience agendas, as if this could all be it's all entirely dependent on the will and the sort of the their own ability to implement the kind of reforms that are needed. And what we want to do through the initiative is put a lot more emphasis on that kind of relational elements it was very, very encouraging to read your book and to see that kind of emphasis really, and also the acknowledgement that they, that since can have influence and you include the example in there of the influence that they were able to have on the climate change negotiations through the alliance of small island states a osis, which is I think a very important case and they continue to do so a osis continues to be a really important force within the climate change negotiations. And I would say even has a kind of leadership role for other developing countries as well, who will, would you kind of join in have similar agendas and similar want to see similar results come out of these negotiations, including now what is very current which is some kind of financing facility to compensate countries for the loss and damage which they will have experienced as a result of climate change so that's an area which I think since are really leading the, I'm pushing for, and will continue I think to be extremely influential so. Yeah I very much sort of enjoyed that that focus and sort of taking it away perhaps from, you know, the individual capacities that they might have or trying to kind of pull out. Yeah, that's the sort of the attributes of a particular small state and then trying to kind of replicate that, which I think, you know sometimes people working in the field of kind of climate policy would tend to do and rather looking more at this kind of the influence they can have through their relationships with, with, with large states, but also with these international organizations and institutions. So, I probably have more to say but yeah, I'll stop them, I'll stop there. Before I turn to Wasim, your last remark, I had wanted to follow up with you so I think I'll do this now which is, I mean one of the things that Tom does in the book is he shows the ways in which I mean small states I mean you know there's sort of multi pronged strategies I mean they're there, they've got bilateral relationships with particular major powers but they also of course are working through international organizations and they're, they're working together through international organizations and international negotiation processes and just curious your take sort of how you, how you see that, that effort of trying to, trying to pursue these different kinds of relationships and, and how those come together and interrelate. Yeah, I mean I think, I think they very much so we see different kinds of strategies and within these, the climate change negotiations it's definitely bringing together that kind of group to be able to kind of all speak with a collective voice on something that affects, you know, the SIDS in a common way. But I think you know that we can also see within that kind of leadership roles, different small island developing states we've seen political figures, leaders who have had a particularly strong voice in that arena who have been very influential and I think also kind of the focus of SIDS in the international arena and particularly around climate change which I think is something that I didn't see happen before so some of it, I suppose kind of international figures with real leadership on climate changes and come from small island developing states. And, and people are beginning to kind of recognize how important that is. So how this all comes together, I mean I think it's, it's, it's very much thinking about how can we, or something that I'm very interested in is how can we kind of decolonize the relationships between small island developing states and some of the kind of larger economies and certainly kind of developed countries advanced economies. Whether it's, you know, in terms of kind of trade negotiations, WTO relations, whether it's the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, whether it's in relation to the eligibility criteria for accessing official development assistance, across all of these arenas, we need to be thinking more about policy makers need to be thinking more about how to support SIDS in achieving their own objectives and what a decolonized relationship would look like and that's something that certainly Rezi is seeking to, well we're having a lot of discussions with the UK government around, and this isn't an agenda that's very close to my heart. So I think that's one way of thinking about how that brings it all together because certainly from a UK perspective, a lot of small island developing states are former colonies, that's one thing that they have in common. And that, that very much kind of helps to helps us to understand that some of the common characteristics of these of small states and the ones that we that we're particularly interested in. It helps us to understand their vulnerabilities it helps us to understand the difficulties that they have engaging with the international system and helps us to understand that to some extent they're kind of the physical vulnerability and exposure to external shocks as well as their kind of, yeah, the particular sort of situation that they're in at being at the kind of frontline of climate change impacts as Tom mentioned so I think that for me that's one, one way of thinking about all of these relationships and how to kind of move towards a kind of a system that favours small states and a supportive of their of their own objectives. That's great thank you so was in turning to you for sort of any any big takeaways that you have for the kind of work you do and I'm particularly interested Tom one of the things Tom does in the book is to show where there are cases where small states are able to play off the great power against each other, Djibouti for example in the book is very interesting discussion there, and just given your work on China and Latin America, just curious how you see that. You know for countries that are that are looking to try to play off the China US competition in Latin America how that manifests itself for you. I mean it's a great question and first you know thank you to new America in the bridging the gap book series for the invitation to speak here and Tom. It's fantastic book on it I'll put it quickly putting my Caribbean hat on being from the region just seeing you know this type of book and showing the type of influence that we can have on the world and more particularly with, you know relationships with great powers I think it's really important to highlight. One quick thing I want to touch on that you mentioned the canary coal mine sort of aspect is, you know, Caribbean countries and its leaders and even not at the leader level just in general are very quick to sort of talk about the effects of global events, or global events in different parts of the world, climate change for sure is one but the pandemic very early on we saw Caribbean leaders sort of reframing the conversation of the pandemic to in a similar way to deal with climate change it being a moral imperative but you know reframing it in a way, you know, going from that aspect and saying look. You know, especially the Caribbean and a strategic location in the Atlantic Ocean saying look, if we don't solve these issues the effects of the pandemic you know it's going to affect, you know the United States and create instability which like affects the you know drug trafficking to Europe and really going using global stages to sort of reformulate the sort of the conversation about the pandemic in itself, which I thought was really impactful and I really picked up on that in the book. And the other thing is sort of, you know, looking at how they, you mentioned the sort of playing, you know great powers off each other you know trying to get vaccines. A lot of the conversation was about us in China, but something that I noticed when Caribbean countries is it wasn't just us in China. The policy calculus with small states is. Yes, there's, there's fewer relationships that they have right the US would have relationships and more than 100 countries and the you know Caribbean countries maybe 20 to 30, but their foreign policy calculus is is much broader so the US and China yes but then they're also looking at countries in Africa, they're looking at India they're looking at the UK as different ways to play these countries off each other Canada as well you know we saw, you know, you know certain countries in the Caribbean first approach, China first approach India for vaccines when they had approached the United States and weren't getting it. Then they, you know they welcomed lots of sinopharm vaccines which then they sort of, you know, use the immediate media spectacle right you know having you know being across national media Prime Minister is going to the airports and you know receiving these vaccines and you know that had an influence and how the US had to mobilize its own vaccine resources to you know speed up the amount of time it takes to sort of ship them to the country and it actually in many ways, you know, I wouldn't say forced but it helped the US move from a multilateral approach really to start, you know, using bilateral donations. It's specifically in the Caribbean specifically with some countries in Latin America we saw very early on with with Mexico. And then some like really key points that I saw that I took from this book, you know it was really interesting is seeing the influence of small states, particularly from the Caribbean in real time, as I was reading this. I was in Barbados last week for a discussion on financial access roundtable. That was a part of a congressional delegation to Barbados you know had several caracom heads there. What's interesting is that that discussion right on de-risking, which is one that the US and US banks never want to really talk about, materialized because of Caribbean leaders in 2019, going to Washington meeting with several members of Congress, sitting in these offices explaining the de-risking issue but doing it in a way that describes how this issue affects US interests. So framing this issue and how it affects US interests a couple years later leads to a financial access roundtable in Barbados with US banks and members of Congress now paying particular attention to a region that they oftentimes neglect. And then the final thing that I'll mention is, you know, we talk, at least in the Caribbean, we talk a lot about sort of caracom integration, economic integration. What the book has really brought to my attention is what are some of the challenges that the caracom countries themselves are facing in their own integration, right? We talk about this asymmetrical relationships and looking at relational-wise. It's maybe there is a reason that countries like Antigua and Dominica and St. Vincent don't always align foreign policies or align their economic policies with a country like Jamaica, which relative to the United States has a small economy, but relative to Antigua is a much bigger economy. And this can lead to several integration challenges that we see in caracom and why, you know, we see these, yes, we see these big collective statements on things like climate change in the pandemic, but when it comes to sort of, you know, getting rid of trade barriers, for example, that's not exactly the case. So I think this book really does help us look at a very nuanced level, even in smaller regions, to just sort of generalize and say, okay, Caribbean countries are all small. They're all going to vote together. That's not exactly the case. You look at OES voting records, you look at UN voting records most recently when it comes to sort of Russia's war in the Ukraine. You know, we're seeing these sort of discrepancies and I think this book is really helping us understand why that's the case. Well, Tom, you may want to respond to more of what Emily and Wazim have been talking about, but since Wazim raised the issue of Russia's war against Ukraine. I do want to ask you, you know, I mean, a small states nightmare is to have a large neighbor invade it and try to topple its government or try to take its territory and this war is is horrific. And we've seen varied, as Wazim was just noting, there are varied reactions to it across the world. And I think in the US, a lot of our focus has been on the unity of the Euro-Atlantic community and the way that NATO has responded. We have seen variation in reaction, especially across the global south. And, you know, just curious why some countries seem so ambivalent about siding with those countries that feel like, you know, Ukraine needs every amount of help it can get to defend itself against this brutality. Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's a fascinating question because it's sort of the canary in the coal mine argument that I enunciated and sort of the role of those international norms on one level one would point to those norms and say small states should be the strongest defender of the strongest defenders of norms on territorial integrity for, for example, precisely because because they lack capabilities to defend themselves from a great power or great power invasion on on their own. However, this is where I think the sort of moving away from treating small states as, as, as a category across which we should expect uniform behaviors and putting small states in the context of their own of their relationships is is really important. And when you do that you might start to see some different features of of small states responses to this crisis so some of those might be concerns about about other kind of international norms a lot of small states are concerned about the use of statecraft for example in the way that that could that that could that that could affect them being the targets of sanctions for example. But they also of course have varied relationships with the states involved whether that's Russia directly, or whether that's that's with, or whether that's with with China which is also of course had a more ambivalent to supportive attitude to Russia, but there's another aspect that I think where I think thinking about asymmetry is is is really important to understanding this, this, this conflict, which is that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has often been read, and we've spent a lot of time talking in terms of Russia NATO relations, and that's understandable given the concern about about nuclear escalation. But also when we think about about the Russian Ukrainian relationship as as a as a symmetrical. I think we can start to understand a lot of the patterns of misperceptions that have existed in that relationship, where, you know, for a large power like Russia in this case, security is it under understands it is often about deference from from the small state right but to the smaller state and Ukraine is you know not not a typical small state by by any sense but but but to the smaller state, the security is existential. And so this leads to to really different patterns of perception of the same asymmetrical relationship. The other aspect that that I think is worth highlighting is it show looking at at Ukraine's response. I think our own resolve and capacities have have been important, but it's also been very effective in in in turning to relationships with other powers. Right. That is, it has not been a passive recipient of aid from NATO it has not been a passive recipient of sort of outside narratives about the about the Russian invasion. It has been really active in shaping those relationships in shaping that narrative, and in using those relationships to derive and bolster its own capabilities to resist the invasion. Okay, there is an audience question that I want to turn to in a second but I'm just sticking on this point for a minute just curious Emily. As you think about resilience and you think about the, the countries that you work with and, and their, their need to have something done about climate change. I mean one of the features of this war at least within Europe is there's a lot of interesting dependence on Russian energy supplies and potentially, you know, shifting the way Europe thinks about energy in ways that might actually have beneficial impact for for the future contours of and trajectory and I'm just curious whether, sort of, as you look at this, you know, sort of ways in which countries that really need relief from the impact of climate change may end up having some hope that that out of this war that that Europe's behavior at least might change with respect to the use of fossil fuels. Yeah, I mean, that would be, that would be great. I'm not sure we're quite at the, I'm not sure that leaders within Europe are quite ready to take those kind of decisions I mean the UK has just released an energy policy which is much more focused on nuclear energy than I think any of us working in the sector expected, which is both problematic, you know as a short term strategy to in terms of reducing dependence on oil, putting pressure on Russia not that the UK is hugely dependent on oil or gas from Russia, but it doesn't meet the kind of longer term climate mitigation or reducing greenhouse gas emission goals either. So I don't think we're sort of seeing, we're not seeing the kind of opportunity being taken up to really accelerate those investments which it could be and I'm still not entirely clear why there isn't the kind of right, we're not in the right kind of political moment to take those kind of decisions I think it's, you know, it's certainly related to the fact that we're coming out of off the kind of a huge amount of government spending and increasing debt due to the pandemic and that's making things, you know, difficult for governments who want to, who do have kind of ambitious agendas around renewable energy and achieving net zero carbon emissions but yeah I think I think you know it could be a great opportunity but I think the same thing was said about you know during the pandemic as well about building back better right and didn't really materialise in the US either as a set of really kind of coherent and ambitious policies. I think the other thing is of course, you know in the meantime, what small line developing states really need as well as obviously the commitments around renewable energy is the commitment to spend more in helping them to adapt and to kind of absorb the impacts of climate change and again I don't think it's a particularly conducive environment to increasing those budgets. But, you know, we live in a world where there isn't a choice anymore it's not, you know, there's not a perfect moment and it's not one thing or the other but hopefully, you know, with all of this going on it won't drown out those voices and one thing that I've just wanted to mention in relation to that interestingly in the UK and we do see it in other countries as well is that bringing together the kind of foreign policy and development agendas and we saw a merger. The other wonderful last of the of our department for international development and the foreign office into kind of one, one department is that there's actually that's actually brought about kind of greater interest in from the UK government in small and developing states because as a foreign policy issue, there's more potential kind of interest in small states through the kind of opportunity, the sort of positive relationship that the UK can have with, you know, particularly former colonies islands in the Pacific and Caribbean and the kind of soft power that that can generate and trading relationships post Brexit and other kind of opportunities as the foreign office would see it, which is not definitely not what we were seeing before from the Department for international development as a separate unit who would really not interested in small countries with small populations in terms of their kind of the kinds of targets that are important to a development that is build the resilience of X million people or some such goal, in which case, you know, small states are not going to help them much in achieving those goals. We're seeing a lot more interest now, in fact, despite the, the current climate and, and, and the war in the UK knows actually growing interest in from this smallish island in other islands around the world. So Tom, there's a question here from Anne. When does a small state stop being a state in traditional terms of what constitutes a state. So I'm actually going to broaden that out and just ask you to talk a little bit about sort of the categories that you use. Especially as we sort of think about, I mean, there are there are the states in the international system that have their seat at the United Nations. There's a country like Taiwan that is able to play a role in certain international organizations, not in others is recognized by some countries not others particularly challenging small states that want to recognize Taiwan, but you know, China puts tremendous pressure on them and their entities like Kurdistan, which, you know, receives support but is not, you know, an independent state is a, you know, as an entity as a region. I mean, how do we, how do we think conceptually about these issues related to what it is to be a state what it is to be a small state. Yeah, I mean, obviously it's sort of it's a combined concept in that point we have to think about stateness and and smallness. And sort of the stateness aspect and I'm glad to have this question because that's the aspect that is more often I think taken for granted in this conversation that is, you know, we, we know what is a state that is the certain usually international legal recognition is understood to sort of conferring conferring statehood, you know, the marker today is as Jim mentioned sort of being a member of the United Nations is is seen as as the sign that you've made it effectively as as as a state. You know, some of these borderline cases sometimes referred to as de facto states or quasi states, where the state often has a lot of what we would consider the domestic attributes of statehood it has a population a territory of government, etc. It has little or no international recognition. And I think, you know, from the perspective of thinking about small states, those cases are really interesting because they, they highlight the costs and benefits of sovereignty. And a lot of those states or quasi states de facto states are working really hard to attain international recognition to get that that sort of international legitimacy, because it confers upon them, a much greater ability to participate in international relations opens up different types of of international finance and development finance and, despite what we see happening in Ukraine now. It's linked to a very high level of what's referred to as extantism if once you once you exist as as a state you usually continue to to exist as as as a state. Um, so in the book I'm mostly talking about states that have that level of international recognition and I talk a little bit about why, why I think that that matters. And in some other work I've looked at sort of how these, how these de facto states engage in relations with one another and why it is that that that some small states might choose to recognize, say, Taiwan, in ways that go beyond I think the sort of the pure material benefits that Taiwan might try to provide to to to its allies. Just to shift to the other aspect of that concept which is smallness, the idea of smallness and what is a small state is also dealt with and in really different ways, both in practice and and and in our scholarship so you know there are definitions of, of what is a small state in diplomatic practice and they're often very population focused. So, you know, in some IOs that is a population of 1 million or 1.5 million, the UN has a forum on small states that nominally is 10 million, the population of 10 million that also includes a few states that are a bit, a bit larger than that. And this is what I kind of think of as the category approach to thinking about what a small state is in the book. And this is a bit of it's it's a shift and you know for some maybe a bit of a dodge. What I do is I'm actually thinking about about asymmetrical relationships and thinking about small states as the as as as states that are the the materially smaller weaker partner in relationships where there's a big material disparity this is kind of your traditional great power, non great power relationship. And you know I think that that allows me to do certain things in the book in terms of trying to look at and compare types of relationships. It's not perfect for all uses and I mean I think this isn't is an area where we're both, you know, Emily and was he might have different views of what of how we should constitute a small state because in a lot of examples that sort of smallness on its own can it can matter when a state is can can field only quite a small diplomatic service it can field only quite a small foreign service. And that means that it may struggle to have a representative at all of the different international organizations or the many many conversations that are happening around the UN. It may struggle to have a representative at all of those, even though it's interest are play, because it's it's foreign services too small, you know, it cannot feel, it cannot afford to field a foreign service big enough to do some of those things to maybe take the advantage of some of the opportunities that I tried to highlight that that might exist for small states in in certain types of cases. And so that really forces those states to prioritize and to make difficult choices about where they're going to stand send their ideas and how they're going to commit their, their, their resources so now I think both of those elements sort of smallness and stateness matter quite a lot and so those are that's a little bit about kind of how I made made made the choices that I did and in conceptualizing small states and in that way but you know, like with any concept there are different ways to approach it which might capture some things and and and miss others. Thanks. Well, so there's a question here from Maurizio. What kinds of strategies are small states deploying and then in parentheses emulation creativity, etc. So that they get international attention maybe we'll focus on this emulation. So part of this question maybe start with was seen sort of. How do you see small states sort of learning from one another learning from successes and failures in the international system as they sort of plot their own strategies. Yeah, I think that's a great question. Um, you know, I see that. Emily had mentioned the success of particularly Caribbean leaders that, you know, the way reform related sort of how we think about climate change and, and Tom mentions it in the book and I see that Caribbean countries are taking the same approach to other global issues, right we saw it during the pandemic right using the UN using the WHO as international platforms, you know specifically Prime Minister Motley of Barbados, using this as a platform. So basically talk about, you know, the pandemic in the way that we have been talking about climate change for the past 20, 30 odd years. Now we're seeing it, you know, with Russia's war in Ukraine, you know, yes, Russia's Russian Ukraine that's on the other side of the world for the Caribbean countries but now the conversation is shifted to high energy prices and so high, you know, high energy food prices. And so then using this similar strategy of a small countries that like like Tom just mentioned you might not be able to take advantage of some of the other diplomatic avenues for example, if you're a Caribbean ambassador in Washington DC you're often also the permanent representatives the oh yes or the non resident ambassador to Mexico which means that you you simply don't have the resources or the time or the bandwidth to to work with all three of these countries or organizations. So that means that global platforms like the UN now become much more important right there's much more emphasis on how you can use it, which is why climate change is brought up. The pandemic is brought up, you know the effects of you know high energy prices brought up, and we're even seeing it in spaces like talking about global reparations right Caribbean countries are leading the charge on this because they're not talking about day in and day out but they're using specific instances they're being much more strategic. They'll mention at the UN if the royal family visits Barbados resist Jamaica this is going to be a point of discussion, using media to their benefit right international media outlets using CNN world BBC world to be able to talk about these issues in a global scale without having to have a permanent representative or ambassador day in and day out, trying to move the needle on this process. So that's, you know, and it speaks to the point before is, you know, what is a small state it's, it's, you have to consider the small state circumstance, one is, you know, not having a lot of members of your Foreign Service, but another part is just, how do you, you know, how do you work with other countries just being a small economy, right you know the Taiwan, you know Taiwan was brought up. Why is Taiwan still have allies in the Caribbean. Well the reason is they have small economies and Taiwan doesn't really have to do a lot. In order to have an effect in these Caribbean countries right you can donate 10,000 homes to Barbados because that equates to, you know, like 10% of the population, for example. So I think you know they've learned you know as being this is the identity of being small is how to use these global platforms to advance their own agendas or maybe sometimes it's not even advancing agenda maybe it's just starting a conversation. And we saw that with climate change we're seeing it now with global reparations, and I'm sure we're going to see it in the coming decades. Thanks Emily. Your thoughts on this, especially the question of sort of learning I mean you did raise it earlier but just curious. Yeah, I mean one other thing I was thinking about which I think the small states will the small developing states are really taking a kind of leadership role in kind of moving the agenda forward and on something that you know hasn't shifted for quite some time. I kind of alluded to it before but is really around the kind of aid effectiveness and you know there's long been this kind of kind of narrative that you know with enough kind of development assistance over time countries will increase their income or capital levels they'll graduate they'll no longer need development assistance, and then they'll be independent and will no longer like require that kind of support. And I think since have have their experience and the way they've kind of engaged on this topic internationally is that that is not working that doesn't work. They'll graduate out of official development assistance and immediately kind of amass very high levels of debt, and I think they've been very strong on on this agenda and sort of turning back to the international financial institutions, and saying you know this is not working first of all, this is criteria the eligibility criteria for receiving this kind of aid is wrong, and the GDP per capita kind of metric is not the right one, because they can be you know the GDP can easily be wiped out by an extreme weather event. So then they're kind of back to where they were before. And of course it hides inequalities and lots of other issues associated with development but I think particularly the debt issue is important so I think, you know they've, they've been extremely influential in kind of putting that more to the the OCD countries and the main donors and making sure that you know that's now being looked at. And, and there is a multi dimensional vulnerability index, which has been developed and taken a lot more seriously now and they've been organizations working on it for years, 20 plus years but it's really I think in the last two years. So that's really beginning to kind of gain some traction. And that is due to the experience and the way that small states have kind of framed the problem I think it's it's kind of being able to use evidence of the specific situation, more effectively in the right discussions. And, and I think behind the scenes as well probably having discussions with some of the kind of the main donors in the OCD countries to get this kind of onto their radar. So that was just another example that is a really important issue around which I think they've been influential in, you know, putting forward that that very special kind of situation that they're in and making it kind of clear why the aid and development system needs to work differently for small states. And Tom was even and Emily have both used the word leadership, as they, in their remarks and, and reference particular leaders, we've been talking about states and strategies by states but of course these states are led by people. And it matters a lot as we in our own countries. What, you know who the leader is, and just maybe give us an example one or two, you know, individuals that you think, you know, are really emulatable, or should be emulatable out there, leaders of small states. Yeah, I mean I think this leadership question is, is a really, is a really important one I mean if leadership is important to to to a great power in a sense, you know, it's even more important to to to a small state to be able to recognize these opportunities to respond to the pressures to develop particular particular relationships. So I mean I guess I would say before kind of answering your question about examples more directly. One thing I tried to be a bit careful about in the in the book is actually talking about leaders and talking about the goals of particular leaders because I think it's easy in a lot of a lot of IR but maybe particularly with small states to sort of assume that achieving a goal is kind of a normative good. Right and and of course leaders are pursuing their own particular goals, which are often and what they perceive as as being the well being of the of the state they lead. And of course they might also have things like their own kind of regime survival in mind. They might have have their kind of benefits that they're seeking to accrue to themselves in mind so I mean I think it's also important when we're kind of thinking about and contextualizing the goals of small states that those goals are read through the lens of different of different leaders. So, and if some of the the classic examples that have been have been talked about quite quite a lot are are around the issue of climate change so. So Tony de Brum is an example who's often cited for for something that that Jack Corbett who's a professor at Southampton and his co authors have have termed the competent performance of vulnerability. And I think that this highlights some of the some of the points that Emily and was seen we're talking about as well which is that that small state leadership often has to has to get those two things right has to balance those two things on the one hand, showing and making larger states care about them and why their quote unquote vulnerability matters to them, but but also doing so in a way that is extraordinarily competent that is that that is resilient that shows a great deal of capacity and innovation and so this is something that a osis and and and and different small island groups around climate change have have done have done really well. You know one case that that I looked that I've looked at quite quite a lot and then the historical record has to do with Panama's position and negotiations with the United States. And it was around the return of the Panama Canal Treaty in the 1970s. And so this was a government in authoritarian military government that was renegotiating something that it certainly saw as both in its own interest and in the interest of Panama, but did a lot of really well kind of making the United States reconceptualize the issue of what a secure Panama Canal meant, bringing a lot of other states alongside with with with Panama so kind of attracting the support of first other Latin American states and then states are around around the world. And I think that's kind of a historical example and then just one, one other case that I wanted to cite because I think it's kind of, it still is ongoing but but but, but is certainly of interest is around questions of small arms trafficking in the Caribbean so this is an issue that has been of really great importance and demonstrates a lot of the dynamics of asymmetry where an issue that is of kind of rather marginal importance for for the United States that is arms that are spilling out from the giant US arms market have really devastating consequences in in small states that are around the region. And so there's been sort of quite astute mobilization and kind of finding common platforms, finding allies, and I should also mention small states relationships are not all with other states. They are often with say NGOs with whom they might have shared interest NGOs that can provide resources and expertise, etc, and help them improve their position and so this is another area that there's been been some progress in terms of trying to trying to develop a diplomatic response to to this big problem of sort of of weapons spilling outside of the United States market and and on to and onto their streets. Great thanks well we have two minutes left and I'm going to ask you a big question but ask you for relatively short answer. As I mentioned, there is a comment from and that I'll just read it's not a question but it's an important comment which is, it appears that successful small states out of necessity, learn to use and leverage limited resources smarter, a lesson large states could learn well said. So, the Biden administration came in president, you know has talked a lot about we're at an inflection point in history it's democracy versus autocracy. And, you know, obviously, the United States for the United States main challengers, like China and Russia are authoritarian states. From your perspective as someone studying small states, do you think that this effort to talk about the world as democracy versus autocracy is a helpful way to characterize international politics, going forward. No, I don't. I mean from the perspective of the United States, say trying to to bring states on board, you know, I don't think that that it's necessarily all that helpful. I think, generally, enunciating this kind of mannequin us versus them view of world politics, Cold War redux is is is can be quite perilous for small states it creates an environment in which sure sometimes you can leverage this competition for to gain resources but it also really increases the risks and being sort of pushed to define exactly which side you're on in this kind of ideological struggle, I think really can increase the risk for small states. Well, this has just been an incredible discussion. Emily and was even thank you so much for taking the time to join us really appreciative of new America and Heather Herbert and Alex Stark for the opportunity to partner and Tom. So excited for you with the release of this book and wishing you much much success with it and I'm very hopeful as I was thinking as we were going through this. This session and the fact that it's recorded. I hope it will get much use in classrooms across the world. As people want to think about the role of small states in the way in which they can have influence and try to be more effective in achieving their goals in world politics so thanks to everyone and and have a great rest of your day. Thank you so much.