An Army Alone Doesn’t Make You a Great Power

Few geopolitical terms are used as often while lacking a definition—or even a shared meaning—as great power. From the origins of World War I to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, certain countries are labeled “great powers,” while others are reduced to being merely “midsize” or “small powers,” based, it seems, on impression rather than anything else.

This is not simply a linguistic problem, or an issue consigned to the corridors of university international-relations departments. It has real-world implications: The common belief before Vladimir Putin’s troops crossed into Ukraine in February was that Russia was a “great power” and Ukraine merely a “small” one, and many foreign-policy experts suggested that the latter should have its fate determined