Risk mitigation versus gains maximisation – The two logics of smaller power hedging amid intensifying great power rivalry

How can smaller powers use hedging effectively to navigate the intensifying great power rivalry? Why can some smaller powers hedge successfully between competing great powers while others fail and suffer serious harm? The burgeoning hedging literature is largely silent about which hedging patterns are likely to be more successful and why. This research contributes to the field by discerning and specifying two distinct modes of hedging – “risk mitigation” and “gains maximisation” – and their implications for hedging outcomes under intensifying great power rivalry. It argues that while these two modes might seem similar, and the extant literature has so far failed to separate them, primarily conceiving hedging as risk minimisation, they have different operational logics and are likely to have different consequences for the hedging states. It probes the two concepts using cases of smaller power hedging in Southeast Asia (Malaysia and Vietnam), exposed to the China–US rivalry, and in the post-Soviet space (Georgia and Ukraine), exposed to the Russia–North Atlantic Treaty Organization rivalry. It further argues that as great power rivalry intensifies, abandoning the gains maximisation and consolidating the risk-mitigation logic of hedging can help mitigate threats posed by great powers and minimise the chances of hedging failure.