Russia is Not a Great Power

Russia is not a great power. It is in no way a contender for the title, and treating it as one of the “power brokers” of the world benefits no one except the autocratic regime that hinges its legitimacy on it but that has simultaneously suppressed the abilities of the Russian people to attain such a status.

One of my favourite comments on the geostrategic environment of the world (and that I often find myself repeating) is by Sun Liping (孙立平), a former sociology professor at Tsinghua University. Sun is a generally liberal Chinese thinker with a considerable Wechat following, and in a post critiquing the Russian invasion of Ukraine writes:¹

the United States will not take as its number one adversary a country whose economic power is merely equal to that of the province of Guangdong.

This is worth taking into perspective. The size of the American economy (indisputably a great power)² can only be matched by that of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and, if one is so inclined, by the collective economies of the European Union. Russia is not even comparable in its share of the global economy. There are two main arguments for the inclusion of Russia in the great power “club”:

1. Its status as a major nuclear power and general military might.
2. Its position on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC)

Let us tackle these things in order. The Russian Federation possesses more nuclear devices than any other country in the world. While this does make them a formidable foe in the nuclear arena the raw numbers masks the strategic balance between the US and Russia. The United States does not need to have as many devices as the Russians do because the American arsenal is more advanced — you do not need as many bombs if you can count on those bombs getting though and hitting their correct target.³

Even then nuclear weapons are losing their relevance in (or in some sense have never been part of) determining a state’s great power status. The Soviet Union never had a clear lead in the nuclear arms race. Instead the logic of the cold war was based on a clear and enormous conventional superiority by the communist block in Europe,⁴ one that necessitated the existence of an American nuclear guarantee.

Even then, I recently pointed out nuclear weapons have made the quick and immediate conquest of another nuclear state impossible. Instead conflict has shifted toward the field of economic warfare, and when direct interstate wars occur it has clearly become a question of attrition and economic might — as shown by the conflict in Ukraine and even in some sense even the 2026 war in Iran. This is not all that surprising, it follows the trend line set by the two world wars. That Russia has not been successful in vanquishing a much smaller country (namely Ukraine) — taking longer than it took the Soviets to defeat a hugely militarized and far larger Germany — is perhaps the clearest example of Russia’s lack of ability to project even hard power.

One of the explanations for Russia’s invasion is that it is only natural for a great power to want to involve itself within its “sphere of influence”. But one of the clearest lessons from the war is that Russia is not able to project itself within this sphere. It is at most a regional power, capable of influencing if not shaping its neighbours’ fortunes. Just as Israel is not a great power, despite both intervening in its region and possessing nuclear weapons, Russia is not one. Russia is instead more comparable to Pakistan, an unstable but problematic autocracy with nuclear weapons but a comparably small economy — only Pakistan has 65% more people than Russia.

What is Russia’s sphere of influence even supposed to be? The invasions of Georgia and Crimea have caused their respective countries to turn against Russia by removing significant pro-Russian voices. Russia did not even attempt to help its ally Armenia in the Azerbaijani conquest of Nagorno-Karabakh. In central Asia Kazakhstan has sent aid to Ukraine, and in Eastern Europe Russia has no way to reach Moldova and Finland and Sweden have both become NATO members. It was forced to abandon its close ally in the Middle East when the Assad regime needed help more than ever; imagine if the United States had abandoned Israel completely in 1967 or 1973 just because it was busy with the Vietnam war — it is a sign of a great power that it can involve itself (directly or indirectly) in conflicts across the globe.

Russia’s stalled war against an Atlantic-supported Ukraine shows how Eastern Europe is not in the Russian sphere, but in the European one — and the Europeans do not even recognize concept of spheres of influence! Europe is however not a coherent force. It is really a mistake to compare the European Union’s collective resources with those of what is a single, coherent (if federal) state. But Europe’s resources and power is so much greater than that of Russia that even a flawed, overly bureaucratic form of coöperation outpaces it considerably. To paraphrase Sun Liping’s excellent observation; “Europe will not take as its number one adversary a country whose economic power is merely equal to that of four German states”.⁵ Every other German state, and every other country contributes a superiority over Russia. The Russian economy lies somewhere between Spain and Italy in size, two European economies that have historically not seen the greatest of growth.

“But”, you may ask, “is it not the size of one’s economy when adjusted for purchasing power-parity (PPP) that matters for war production?” This is a fair argument. Russia is a much poorer country than any other EU country in nominal GDP/capita terms⁶ and can thus afford to buy more goods and services within its borders for the same amount of currency. Even then Europe is dominant — one must merely add a Belgium or Romania to the German GDP (PPP) to overtake Russia. But having a high nominal GDP is still more useful; economies today are not entirely autarchic, not even when it comes to war materiel. Being able splurge on things from international producers and sources gives a very clear advantage, and Russia itself has had to trade extensively for drones and artillery munitions.

Returning to the second of the two core arguments there remains the question of the UNSC. First there are two main critiques that should not be disregarded — the realist take that the United Nations (UN) as a whole is useless and a sham, and the more recent one that posits that the UN is now broken as a result of the actions of the contemporary American administration.⁷ Both of these cases would mean that the Russian seat at the UNSC would already be useless, and so does not convey any real meaning over its status in the international system. It is therefore only interesting to examine the scenario in which the UN and UNSC are working and are still relevant, only that they are very conservative instruments.

The core problem with the permanent Russian seat is specifically its permanency. Since WW2 only one country can really be said to have earned its seat at the table: the PRC (after supplanting the Republic of China in 1971). After the second world war it was of course a given that the Soviet Union, as one of the two foremost victors of that war, would be considered as one of the reigning great powers. But the Russian Federation is not the Soviet Union. It is far smaller; both in population and area; has a considerably less powerful military, and has lost its international empire. But most important of all — it is not a continuation of the Soviet Union itself.

The second sentence of Article 23 of the United Nations Charter clearly states:⁸

The Republic of China, France, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America shall be permanent members of the Security Council.

It is important to note that this is the current version of the charter, and that is has not been amended. Countries are of course allowed to change their names and political systems — as we already established it is now the PRC and not the ROC who represents the Chinese seat — but the Russian Federation has itself explicitly renounced that it is a direct successor to the Soviet Union, it is merely the largest of its remnants who has taken on its responsibilities. Instead Russia effectively seceded from the Union when forcibly dissovled it.

In the end it is a matter of international law, and like all laws that are not practically enforced it is up to us citizens (or states) to ourselves choose how to interpret it individually. The Russian Federation is not, and has never been, a great power. The Soviet Union was. It is therefore prudent (if radical) to make use of this legal quirk to remove Russia from its fraudulent seat. The Russian veto does not exist, and states should follow the directives of the security council even if blocked by Russia.

The benefits of being considered a “great power” are even more vague than the criteria for being one. But if there is one country that we would prefer not to grant that benefit it is the Russian Federation, so if you would stop treating Russia like that, that would would be great. ❦