RUSSIA’S GRAND STRATEGY IN THE POST-2022 INTERNATIONAL ORDER: A NEOCLASSICAL REALIST ANALYSIS

Abstract

This study applies the neoclassical realist (NCR) framework to examine Russia's grand strategy following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Bridging systemic incentives and unit-level intervening variables including state-society relations, executive autonomy, strategic culture, and elite perception NCR illuminates why Russian foreign policy has been simultaneously structurally motivated and tactically dysfunctional. The paper argues that Russia pursues a five-pronged revisionist grand strategy encompassing military force, energy statecraft, informational warfare, Eurasian institutional consolidation, and nuclear signaling, filtered through a Putinist ideational lens that systematically misread both Ukrainian resilience and Western cohesion. While Russia achieved partial success in restructuring global alignments through the BRICS-plus framework and Global South neutrality, its core strategic objectives preventing NATO enlargement and subordinating Ukraine have been decisively frustrated. The paper concludes that Russia faces an accelerating capability-aspiration gap, rendering its grand strategy structurally unsustainable over the medium term without significant systemic shifts.