Beyond the horizon: Revisionist states, middle powers and state threats in the Global South

September 2025

Synthesis Paper 2

Matthew Redhead, RUSI

C ACE project: Understanding State Threats

PUBLICATION SUMMARY

Beyond the Horizon: Revisionist States, Middle Powers and State Threats in the Global South is the second SOC ACE Synthesis Paper by Matthew Redhead.

It examines state threat activity undertaken by middle powers which, while sometimes kinetic, more often takes the form of ‘arms-length’ cyber and information operations.

Matthew notes that major revisionist powers are active in the Global South, but so too are middle powers such as Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, the UAE, India, Pakistan, Egypt, and Vietnam. Their activities focus on transnational repression and intimidation, as well as weaponised criminality. While cyber and information operations dominate, there is also some, though lesser, violent interference with rival powers.

Middle powers employ a variety of actors: private sector and civil society groups, diaspora communities, PMCs, organised criminal groups, political extremists, and terrorists.

Such activity is shaped by a global political climate marked by Western retrenchment, revisionist influence, and the growing use of state threats internationally, a trend likely to proliferate further.

In closing, Matthew observes the challenges Western powers face in prioritising resources and responding to the destabilising affront to the international rules-based order. The West, he argues, needs to understand the granular differences between revisionist actions in the Global South, competition among middle powers, the aid they provide to revisionist states, and actions against dissidents. To do this, the West must build and allocate expertise, carefully prioritise and deconflict resources, and produce a playbook of responses that reinforces international norms while also, perhaps paradoxically, considering disruptive or punitive measures.

Download synthesis paper