Russia and the question of world order

There is broad agreement among commentators and analysts that Russia seeks to undermine the US-led liberal international order. At the same time, there is considerable disagreement over the nature and extent of the challenge Moscow poses, the underlying drivers of Russian revisionism, and how the West should respond. In this article, we argue that it is possible to distinguish between three major perspectives. In brief, the first suggests that Russia is a ‘revanchist power’ that seeks to overturn the very foundations of the liberal world order. The second perspective holds that Russia is a ‘defensive power’ that works for incremental changes within the existing order. The third perspective contends that Russia is an ‘aggressive isolationist’, meaning that the Putin regime deliberately plays a spoiler role in international affairs to boost its domestic legitimacy. This article describes in detail the arguments of the three perspectives; it shows that each suffers from explanatory shortcomings and defects; and it outlines how the contributions to this special issue address the identified shortcomings.