Is Russia still a great power?
By Daniel W. Drezner, Professor of International Politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University
Yes, of course it is. But it’s not the great power everyone thought it was a month ago.
Over the past week, Russia has been casting about for external assistance to prosecute its war in Ukraine. Last week both Russian state news outlet Tass and the Wall Street Journal reported that Russia was attempting to recruit foreign fighters from the Middle East to assist in urban warfare in Ukraine. According to the Daily Beast’s Shannon Vavra, it’s not going very well, as U.S. intelligence officials “haven’t seen indications that their recruiting efforts have borne fruit and resulted in the actual arrival of foreign fighters from that part of the world.”
Over the weekend, reports came trickling out in the Financial Times, New York Times and Washington Post that Russia was asking China for both military and economic assistance. The FT’s Demetri Sevastapulo followed up with a report that the specific request was for surface-to-air-missiles, drones, armored vehicles, logistics vehicles and intelligence-related equipment. Most of this information is coming from U.S. officials, so perhaps this is part of an information campaign designed to tweak Moscow and Beijing. That said, U.S. intelligence on Russian actions in Ukraine has been spot-on over the past few months, and there is corroborating information from Russian statements.
In response to these news developments, I tweeted a question: “what great power needs military assistance after less than a month of kinetic activity?!” Then I suggested something even more provocative:
These tweets stirred up quite the conversation — my Post colleague Olivier Knox featured it in the Daily 202 and everything! That said, some folks were unpersuaded. Some good points were made, and the hard-working staff here at Spoiler Alerts believes it merits further discussion and clarification.
First of all, as several folks pointed out, great powers have indeed gone to war and needed ammunition very quickly. Both the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union desperately needed war material when fighting the Axis powers during World War II, hence the need for the Lend-Lease Act. As recently as 2011, this very newspaper reported that “less than a month into the Libyan conflict, NATO is running short of precision bombs.”
A closer glance, however, reveals why I still think the Russian example remains unusual. The rest of that NATO story about Libya reveals that it was not the United States running low on ammunition, but rather “the limitations of Britain, France and other European countries in sustaining even a relatively small military action over an extended period of time.” As for the World War II examples, it is certainly true that both countries were slow to prepare for Nazi aggression. But neither county was the aggressor against Germany in that war. Their lack of preparation was due in part to being on defense.
This is what is so striking about Russia’s need for additional men and materiel so quickly after it invaded Ukraine. Russia was the aggressor. Russia took months to get its forces in place to prepare for the ground invasion. Russia possessed the initiative in choosing when and how to start this war. Despite all of this advance preparation, Russia needs assistance less than three weeks into its invasion. That is noteworthy.
Michael Kofman, director of Russia studies at CNA and an indispensable source of analysis of the Russian military, asks a fair rejoinder: “Great powers don’t make blunders and start ruinous wars?” The answer, of course, is yes, as anyone possessing a passing familiarity with U.S. foreign policy in this century is no doubt aware of. Great powers make bad military decisions. What is unusual is having to cast about for additional support so quickly after making those bad decisions.
To be clear, I still think Russia is a great power. Any country that big with that many conventional and nuclear weapons is a great power. And Kofman is correct to note that external observers overestimated Russia’s military power after 2014 and might be in danger of underestimating it after this conflict.
Still, analysts never viewed Russia as possessing economic power or soft power. Its claim to great power status rests on its military pillar, and the country has faltered on the dimension. As Dan Nexon noted, “Russia is a great power. But it’s Italy in 1938, not Germany, the US, or the UK.”
This piece is republished from The Washington Post.