Professor of international relations at Macalester College Andrew Latham said that reports of Russia’s decline are greatly exaggerated.
“Russia is unambiguously a “great power” — a country possessing both substantial instruments of national power and the will to use these instruments to influence political outcomes around the world,” he wrote in the article for The Hill.
The professor said that Moscow undertook a radical modernization and upgrading of the country’s nuclear and conventional forces. “Similarly, there can be little doubt that Moscow is able to field the “soft” and “sharp” power capabilities of a great power….Moscow also exercises soft power through the provision of humanitarian aid and debt relief and security through Russian-centered international organizations,” he added.
“Finally, Russia exercises soft power by actively promoting the idea that there are viable alternatives to “degenerate” Western liberal democracy,” he said.
“Conversely, grasping the realities of Russian power and Russia’s place in the international order is a step on the road to strategic clarity,” Latham concluded.
