The Mediterranean sun filtered through conference room windows in Antalya as diplomats from Jakarta to Brasília leaned forward in their chairs, wrestling with a question that would have seemed absurd a decade ago: How do you conduct diplomacy with a superpower that has abandoned the rulebook?

The gathering in Turkey's southern resort city brought together representatives from what international relations scholars call "middle powers" — nations like Indonesia, Mexico, South Korea, and Turkey itself that punch above their weight regionally but lack the global heft of the United States or China. What united them wasn't geography or ideology, but a shared predicament.

"The United States remains an essential player," said one analyst attending the forum, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters. "The problem is how to deal effectively with a power that is indispensable, coercive and unpredictable at the same time."

The New Normal

According to reporting by The New York Times, the Antalya discussions reflected a broader recalibration happening in foreign ministries worldwide. American policy shifts that once took months or years now arrive via social media posts. Trade agreements are threatened, then reinstated, then modified based on factors diplomats struggle to decode. Military commitments that anchored regional security for generations suddenly appear conditional.

For middle powers, this volatility creates impossible choices. Align too closely with Washington, and risk being blindsided by an abrupt reversal. Distance yourself too much, and forfeit access to American markets, military technology, and security guarantees that remain unmatched globally.

The Turkish government, hosting the forum, knows this tightrope intimately. Ankara has oscillated between confrontation and cooperation with Washington over Syria, defense purchases, and regional ambitions. Each swing has carried costs — sanctions threats, weapons embargoes, diplomatic isolation — yet Turkey cannot afford to fully break with its NATO ally.

Hedging Becomes Strategy

What emerged from the Antalya conversations, participants said, was less a coherent alternative to American leadership than a survival strategy built on diversification. If Washington cannot be relied upon, then no single relationship can bear too much weight.

Middle powers are expanding ties with each other, creating networks that might cushion against American unpredictability. Trade agreements proliferate between nations that rarely dealt directly before. Security partnerships emerge in regions where U.S. commitments seem shakiest. Even countries with deep historical ties to Washington now maintain what diplomats delicately call "strategic flexibility."

"We're not abandoning the relationship," one Latin American diplomat told colleagues during a working session, as reported by the Times. "We're just making sure we have other options when things get complicated."

The European Union faces a particularly acute version of this challenge. Decades of security policy rested on American guarantees that now feel less certain. Economic integration with the United States remains profound, yet vulnerable to sudden tariffs or trade wars launched without warning or consultation.

The China Question

Hovering over every conversation in Antalya was the question no one wanted to answer directly: Does American unpredictability make China more attractive as a partner?

Beijing has watched Washington's erratic behavior with barely concealed satisfaction, positioning itself as the reliable alternative. Chinese diplomats emphasize consistency, long-term planning, and respect for sovereignty — a pitch that resonates with nations exhausted by American demands and reversals.

Yet few middle powers want to simply swap one dominant relationship for another. China's authoritarian governance, its own coercive economic practices, and its regional assertiveness create wariness that American missteps cannot entirely overcome.

"The goal isn't to choose between Washington and Beijing," explained a Southeast Asian official familiar with the Antalya discussions. "It's to avoid having to choose at all."

Indispensable but Unreliable

What makes the current moment so disorienting for middle powers is that American strength hasn't fundamentally diminished. The U.S. economy remains the world's largest. Its military capabilities dwarf all rivals. The dollar dominates global finance. American technology companies shape how billions of people communicate and consume information.

In traditional geopolitical terms, the United States should be more essential than ever. And in many ways it is — which makes its unpredictability all the more destabilizing.

"You can plan around a declining power," noted one academic who consulted with delegations in Antalya. "You can plan around a hostile power. But how do you plan around a power that might be your closest ally on Monday and threatening sanctions by Friday?"

The forum produced no grand declarations or formal agreements. Middle powers lack the collective weight to reshape global order on their own, and many compete with each other as much as they cooperate. What participants took home instead was a shared understanding that the old playbook — align with Washington and prosper — no longer guarantees stability.

A World Without Anchors

As delegations departed Antalya, returning to capitals from Seoul to Nairobi, they carried with them a recognition that the post-World War II international system is fraying in ways that extend beyond American behavior alone. Climate change, migration, pandemics, and technological disruption all demand cooperation that seems increasingly elusive.

Yet it's American unpredictability that most immediately threatens the web of relationships, institutions, and expectations that have structured global politics for decades. Middle powers built their strategies around a United States that was dominant and often domineering, but ultimately predictable in its core interests and commitments.

That America — whether it ever truly existed or was always more myth than reality — has given way to something harder to navigate. And in conference rooms like those in Antalya, diplomats are only beginning to sketch out what comes next.

"We're all improvising now," one European delegate admitted as the forum concluded. "The question is whether we're improvising toward something better, or just toward chaos."

The Mediterranean sun set over Antalya's harbor, and the diplomats went home. The question they'd gathered to address remained unanswered, because perhaps it has no answer — only a series of increasingly difficult choices that middle powers must make, one unpredictable day at a time.