Measuring National Power: Is Putin's Russia in Decline?

Is Vladimir Putin's Russia rising, stagnating or falling? Contradictory views on the dynamics of Russia's national power inform policies and decisions with strong and lasting effects on international affairs and global security. The authors used three existing quantitative methods of measuring national power and introduced one experimental method to measure Russia's national power and compare it with that of the leading Western states, BRICS members, former Soviet republics and oil-dependent economies. All methods demonstrated that Russia was rising against its Western competitors in 1999-2016 but trailed behind the United States, China and India in absolute national power value, though, whether Russia would be able to maintain that dynamic beyond that period was doubtful.