USSR/Russian Federation’s Major Power Status Inconsistencies

Abstract

This chapter looks at the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and its successor, the Russian Federation’s major power status inconsistencies, from the period following the Second World War until the present. Following the analytical framework utilized in chapter 1, the definition of a status-consistent major power requires the combination of material capabilities, including economic and military resources (opportunity), a willingness to implement globally encompassing foreign policy goals, and recognition by other countries of this major power status (this ability to gain status is linked to perceptions, both self-attributed and of the self as defined by others, implying a strong normative dimension). In the case of the USSR/Russia, opportunity and willingness are dependent first on endogenous conditions, but also on exogenous constraints, including the leading role a major power might assume in the international system, the creation of structural cooperative agreements, the management of competitiveness, and the manner in which these roles are interpreted by others, in the sense of conferring on them status attribution and recognition.