Description
This paper is an empirical incursion into Russia’s white papers on defence and strategy between 2008 and 2024. The goal is to address whether Russia is a pole of the current international system, a matter of controversy in recent IR literature. I intend to demonstrate that, despite its disruptive role and efforts to advance its preferred version for ordering the international system, the latter does not reflect Russia’s priority preferences. This work relies heavily on content analysis of documents available on Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs webpage as primary sources, particularly its Foreign Policy Concepts, National Security Strategy, and Military Doctrine. Preliminarily, it is possible to state that while it increased its interests from 2008 until 2023, Russia’s proposed ordering for dealing with international challenges remained the same: a model of a “polycentric,” “multipolar” world order. Russia’s promotion of multipolarity and disregard for the norms of the international order may be a rhetorical challenge to American unipolarity, but it has not altered the structure of the international system, despite Russia’s increased military might. The rise of China (at the structural level) and the affinities between the two countries (at the unit level) are important factors in explaining Russia’s recent behaviour.