Russia is only a regional power

A study by a European think tank has analysed leading powers and asessed them by taking into account not just militarised but soft power also.
Number 1 is no surprise but look how far down Russia is.
ukdefencejournal.org.uk...

a reply to: biggilo

Are you positive about that?

Yes, Russia has a big military and a lot of nukes, but not many international friends or bases to allow that military to work independently and away from home. It's good at invading and/or threatening ex Soviet vassal states, but could not deploy outside of a limited set of friends, like Syria, Bolivia or (er), that's it.

People refer to Russia as a Superpower, but it's not. Russia has an GDP the size of South Korea, few close allies of note. It does have a lot of nukes though.

a reply to: Phage

I'm quite surprised how far down the list they come to be fair but not really surprised that the UK is above them. Militarily speaking most Russian equipment is from the early 90's or older and their troops are mostly conscripts. As the report mentions though logisitics is probably the most important aspect, the UK has the ability to deploy the bulk of it's forces anywhere whereas Russia doesn't.
When it comes to soft power Russia would be really lacking too so yeah I think I do agree with them being classed as a regional power.

the soviet union engulfed a shed tonne of countries under the iron curtain now, as russia she only really has iran, syria, china and possibly hungary to call bff.
which is partly the reason putin is destabilizing democracies globally.
had france or holland elected putin's chosen race baiter those countries would be getting ridiculed like britain is after brexit, which he backed.
what about america?

it's a good job there was no internet in the 60's.

They're definitely a regional power. The only thing that gives them the appearance of being something more are their nukes.

i kinda get russia but china ...

so they made a new ranking system and skewed it so badly that china is below france ...

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: biggilo

Are you positive about that?

Yes. Positive that hes right....Russia is further down the list in that article, which classifies its power as the OP reports

I think the intention was to present a link for discussion. I could be wrong.

a reply to: markovian

That was my thought as well.

Britain is not as strong as this propaganda insinuates. Not that they are weak at all. But come on man.

Canada? Really? Lol

Personally, I wouldn't be so quick to make judgement on the extent of their power based on the fact that they don't feel the need to meddle everywhere they possibly can as the US/UK do.

I think if push came to shove, in a proper confrontation - with or without nukes - only the US would have the power to defeat Russia in a full-scale war. And at the end of the day that's the only proper way to make judgement on the extent of their power.

Am guessing the folks behind this "study" are slightly biased in their views against Russia and are just hopping onto the 'bash Russia' bandwagon that's all the rage at the moment.

a reply to: biggilo

Great Britain was only a regional power yet held sway over 412 million people, 23% of the world's population at one time.

Just a thought.

Britain is the only "global power" on that list, yet we are told that a hard Brexit would be an economic disaster. It seems to me that a global power should be able to maintain itself without paying the EU billions to make laws for them.

I think the author of the article may be a wee bit biased. But maybe the whole point of the article is to make it seem that a war with Russia wouldn't be all that bad.

a reply to: biggilo

Whatever those 'experts' go by as statistics you just can't take away the fact that Russia is the biggest country on Planet earth by a mile. For that reason it will always remain a superpower, when push comes to shove countries like the UK can't go the long haul in any engagement, we just don't have the resources. Russia due to its landmass can go the long haul, as proved in WW2 when it was attacked by a supposed knock out punch but when it comes down to reality the largest reserves of just about everything exist in Russia and these will always count more than anything else. As Adolf found out

a reply to: markovian

From a military perspective, China has no projection whatsoever. While they have a large army they really don't have the capabilities to move it much beyond their borders.

The same goes for Russia. They have one aircraft carrier and it's constantly breaking down.

originally posted by: Xcalibur254
a reply to: markovian

From a military perspective, China has no projection whatsoever. While they have a large army they really don't have the capabilities to move it much beyond their borders.

The same goes for Russia. They have one aircraft carrier and it's constantly breaking down.

As Putin stated recently, Russia certainly doesn't need any more land. It is the biggest country on Planet Earth by a man mile. It has no need for power projection to steal the resources of foreign nations, it has enough resources of it own.

Did anyone assess the impact of "the russian trolls" in conjunction with this?
The msm tells us they are extraordinarily dangerous and powerful in the world of social media.

a reply to: ufoorbhunter

That doesn't really change the fact that Russia is a regional power. If Putin decided he did want more land the Russian military isn't going to suddenly have the capability to wage war on a global scale.

a reply to: Xcalibur254

As the largest country on Planet earth by an absolute mile Russia has no need for more land, hence the concentration on land army and air defence. Putin said they have plenty already, no need for more land so no need for power projection. Russia is in the Euro Asian region where the vast majority of the humanity lives, there is no need for projecting power to relatively scarcely populated regions of the Earth.

a reply to: ufoorbhunter

Repeating yourself doesn't change anything I just said. Whether or not Russia's lack of projection is by choice or not doesn't change the fact that they lack it.

Thus, Russia is a regional power.

a reply to: ufoorbhunter

russia was also the largest country on the globe in 1939 but still wanted mmore [ poland , estonia , latvia , finland , lithuania ]

it waa still the largest country in 1945 - but still wanted more [ eastern europe ]

it was STILL the largest country in 2014 - but hey it wanted more [ crimea ]

anyone see the patern ??????????????????