JRL NEWSWATCH: “Is Vladimir Putin’s Russia in decline? We figured out how to measure ‘national power.'” – Washington Post/Simon Saradzhyan, Nabi Abdullaev
“… Overall, here’s what we found. The claims of Russia’s imminent demise seem unfounded – all but one model showed that Russia’s power vis-a-vis the world as a whole has grown in the 21st century. And all our models showed that Russia’s power has risen vis-a-vis Western nations. In absolute terms, all four methods showed Russia’s power to be less than that of the United States – and one showed it trailing Germany. All four models show that Russia has lagged behind China and India in absolute values of national power. Russia’s gains in national power, however, appear to be petering out as its economy trudges along and the country’s demographic improvements, like the end of post-Soviet depopulation and even modest growth in 2011-2015, show signs of flagging. …”