The Belligerent Bear: Russia, Status Orders, and War

Do states get higher social status from fighting? The relationship between war and social status in world politics has been widely explored in recent years by scholars of international relations.¹ This topic is of crucial interest given the finding in cognate literatures that actors are willing to bicker, quarrel, or even fight to gain higher status or adjust a perceived lack of status.² Indeed, arguments on status in international relations agree that participating in wars can be either a viable status-seeking strategy, or a normal way of acting out because of perceived status underperformance.³

Existing research shows that states seek status by joining or initiating wars. But it has yet to fully determine whether states get recognition from fighting.⁴ This is puzzling given what is at stake. Wars kill people, destroy states, and cause irreversible damage to individuals and groups. Thus, if states believe that war is a means to achieve status—however ethically alarming such a stance might be—it is imperative to also understand whether other states grant belligerent states status recognition.

To fill this gap, I explore conditions under which war and aggression can lead to higher social status in world politics. In line with previous research, I assume that wars can have different status effects. Most obviously, losing a war can reduce a state's social status and winning one can increase it. But an even more important factor in determining status effects is the context in which the warfighting is interpreted. States rarely gain or seek recognition from the international system as a whole. Instead, they both pursue and receive status from various substrata of world politics. I call these substrata “social clubs,” which are social collectives of exclusion and inclusion that confer status on their members.⁵ Each club contain a “status order.” These are social structures that condition and enable the pursuit and recognition of status. Status orders determine the criteria that states need to enter social clubs or to navigate their status hierarchies.⁶ I argue that the prestige of war depends on whether the relevant social club, through its status order, assigns positive value to war fighting or not. A state might be criticized, sanctioned, or even condemned for fighting a war. But it might simultaneously experience an increase in status within the relevant club and status order if that club recognizes fighting as esteemed behavior. Conversely, if a status order stigmatizes war, the belligerent state will experience a drop in status—even if the state wins a war and can demonstrate an effective use of force.

I build a qualitative research design to study the relationship between status orders and war. I use discourse analysis as a method of analysis to explore status orders and their components. Existing research relies on proxies to infer status attribution. In contrast, studying recognition via words means focusing on the place where status claims and concessions are taking place.⁷ I conduct a single case study of the great power club to understand how status orders affect the relationship between social status and war.⁸ Next, to explore the assumption that clubs in world politics have distinct status orders, I compare the core case with two ancillary shadow case studies:⁹ the United Nations (UN) Security Council and the Group of 8 (G-8).¹⁰

For the core case study, I assign the United States the role of chief gatekeeper of the great power club. I then analyze the reception of the 2014 annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine in the U.S. public discourse. I rely on op-eds and editorials from 2010 to 2019 about the great powers. These opinion pieces reflect what the public associates with great power status. Hence, they offer a window into the status order of the great power club. They also provide insight into what becomes accepted as obvious and commonsensical among the public. Decision-makers with authority to bestow recognition upon other states are socially constrained by these narratives.

Discursive recognition of Russia's belligerence by the U.S. public and foreign policy elites is a least likely case for Russian inclusion in the club. It is least likely because the elites have little incentive to offer admission. Recognizing Russia as a great power means attributing social status—and with that potential power and influence—to a historical and contemporary adversary. If the U.S. public conceives of Russia as a great power, it increases the likelihood that foreign policy officials will do the same. And if these U.S. foreign policy officials recognize Russian great power status, it increases the likelihood that other established great powers would do the same.

I also explore the assumption that clubs of world politics have distinct status orders. To do so, I compare the findings in the core case with how discourse on Russian belligerence was framed in the two shadow cases. If the type of status recognition in the UN Security Council and the G-8 differs from that in the great power club, it increases the confidence that the esteem of war depends on the status order in which it is framed.

The analysis shows that Russia, up until 2014, was represented in the U.S. public discourse as a second-tier, fallen superpower. Russia was seen as a state desperate to pursue—but ultimately destined to fall short of—great power status. Russia's annexation of Crimea drastically shifted the U.S. public discourse. Instead, it was seen as a revived empire. Russia became a state willing to shun norms of the liberal international order to resurrect the Russian and Soviet empires. These narratives laid groundwork for an account of Russia as an equal rival great power. By 2019, the narrative of a rivaling group of great powers—consisting of the United States, China, and Russia—dominated the U.S. public foreign policy discourse.

Russia's social status in the UN Security Council and the G-8 took a distinctly different turn than in the great power club. In the UN Security Council, Russia's status remained unchanged because of a combination of established legal privileges and the council's joint interest in cooperation on other issues. In contrast, members of the G-8 threw Russia out of the club in 2014 because it violated the club's shared rules, values, and order.

The findings of this article have three implications for the study of status in international relations. First, the effective use of force is a central component of the status order of the great power club. While Russia's annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine was condemned and criticized within the U.S. public discourse, it was simultaneously recognized as a move that elevated its standing vis-à-vis the great powers. Second, some clubs may value war (the great power club) while others condemn it (the G-8). Thus, the often-mentioned statement that war either elevates or diminishes states’ status, without referring to in which clubs the status change takes place, is logically invalid. Third, if status orders dictate whether states get status from fighting, they must also shape the type of recognition that states receive from other actions. International behavior, of which war-making is one example, affects multiple audiences who will respond differently. Incorporating analyses of social clubs’ status orders is thus crucial in any attempt to understand the recognition that a state receives for its actions.

This article proceeds as follows. First, I review the literature on status and war in international relations and highlight the lack of focus on recognition. Second, I develop the theoretical concept of status orders and highlight their importance in determining states’ social status. Third, I present the research design of the article. In the fourth section, I analyze the change in Russia's social status vis-à-vis the great power club after it annexed Crimea and invaded eastern Ukraine. Fifth, I compare the change in Russia's social status in the great power club with its change in the UN Security Council and the G-8. Sixth, in light of the findings, I discuss the future of Russia's status in world politics following Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine beginning in February 2022. In the final section, I sum up the article's findings and limitations as well as outline its broader implications for the study of status in international relations.

In the last decade, research on status in international relations emerged from the discipline's background to become a productive field of research.¹¹ This wave of research shows that states go to war because of status,¹² that they spend money to cultivate it,¹³ and that they behave in an irrational manner when it is up for grabs.¹⁴ The allure of social status stems from two observations. First, status grants actors an intrinsic good. Second, actors can reap the positive byproducts of status—visibility, influence, and voluntary deference.¹⁵

A large part of the status literature in international relations explores the relationship between war and status. This research agenda centers on three questions. First, scholars consider whether and to what extent perceived lack of prestige increases the likelihood of war.¹⁶ The literature conceptualizes these status gaps as status deficits,¹⁷ status anxiety,¹⁸ status inconsistency,¹⁹ status dissatisfaction,²⁰ status humiliation,²¹ misrecognition,²² and status uncertainty.²³ In short, this research shows that perceived status deficits lead to grievances. These grievances, in turn, increase the likelihood of war.

Second, scholars examine how status may influence states’ decisions to go to war. This strand of research focuses on whether participation in wars can be explained by the prize of higher status. This research shows how the carrot of potentially increasing or preserving status leads states to start conflicts,²⁴ legitimize international interventions,²⁵ participate in military coalitions,²⁶ and engage in great power conflicts.²⁷

A third question is how and to what extent military capabilities can act as status symbols. Status symbols are things, attributes, privileges, or reputations that actors acquire, embody, or practice to signal their preferred social status. Within this strand of research, states acquire military objects such as nuclear weapons,²⁸ aircraft carriers,²⁹ combat aircrafts,³⁰ and naval fleets³¹ to signal high social status in world politics.

To be sure, these questions have generated valuable insights into understanding how war works to adjust states’ status. Yet, the research on war and status has yet to explore whether belligerents get status from fighting. The major exception is Jonathan Renshon's scholarship. Renshon uses the number of hosted diplomatic missions as a proxy measure for status recognition to show that states gain status from fighting regardless of whether they win or lose.³² But Steven Ward has identified key errors in Renshon's research design.³³ Ward labels Renshon's finding that initiating and especially winning a war improves a state's status as a “modeling error.” When this error is corrected, the positive status effect of initiating wars disappears, and the status effect of winning a war is weakened.³⁴

Moreover, the proxy measure is problematic.³⁵ The network centrality measure assumes that if state A establishes an embassy in state B, it represents a “vote” for state B's importance in the world. This measure is noisy. Hosting international organizations, receiving aid, colonial ties, and geographic proximity can raise the diplomatic rank of states. Yet these factors are not indicators of high status.³⁶ Moreover, high-status states should in theory count most in determining the status of recipient states. Hosting a Chinese embassy is a stronger signal of prestige than hosting a Norwegian embassy. But the wealthier and more powerful states have the resources to establish embassies in virtually every corner of the world. Thus, an embassy from a high-status state, such as the United States or China, in practice carries little to no information about the hosting state's prestige. Instead, embassies from low-status states are most informative in that measure and ultimately dictate most states’ positions in the international status hierarchy.³⁷

Scholars are right to critique the diplomatic representation proxy measure. But the field has yet to develop an equally sophisticated approach to capture status recognition. Most scholars instead focus on showing that states and leaders go to war because they want higher status. In turn, some hint that participation may increase a state's status.³⁸ To be sure, this line of research has been useful for showing that status is an important factor in understanding states’ motivations for war. Yet, it has not shown whether those aspirations come to fruition.

Another strand of research explicitly focuses on the social consequences of fighting. Like status, reputations are formed by others’ beliefs that an actor has a certain trait.³⁹ Although the conceptual distinction between status and reputation is not that clear, these concepts should nonetheless remain analytically separated for two reasons. First, status is autotelic, reputation is not. In other words, it is meaningless to seek reputation as a goal in itself. Analytically, reputation only comes into existence when it influences perceptions that an actor is capable and willing to fight.⁴⁰ Social status could also be identified via its effects (for instance via voluntary deference). But this would eliminate those cases in which actors have status, but its effects are equivocal. It would also not pick up the social process of turning a feat, quality, or behavior into recognition and status.

Second, reputations are easier to manipulate than status.⁴¹ States can gain a reputation for something without affecting others’ reputations. In contrast, status is positional and competitive. If everyone has high status, no one does.⁴² Consequently, peers have an incentive not to recognize actors for their status-seeking if the status quo is preferable to them. This makes status stickier than reputations.⁴³ Thus, research on reputation can assume that a state strengthens its reputation for resolve if it commits more than before. The same logic cannot be applied to status. But reputations still affect actors’ social status. Status is influenced by a host of factors, actions, symbols, traits, and, indeed, reputations.⁴⁴ As the next sections illustrate, reputations for toughness or ruthlessness can help actors join a prestigious club or navigate a particular status hierarchy.

To sum up, the lack of research exploring the recognitional side of belligerence—with an eye for its spatial, temporal, and social contingencies—is puzzling. To fill this gap, I develop a theoretical framework and research design that underline the importance of different status orders in determining how and whether war leads to higher status.

To study the effects of going to war on an actor's social status, it is important to understand whose opinion matters. Indeed, if states fight wars for status, they rarely seek recognition from the “international society.” Instead, states seek and receive status from different substrata of world politics, which I call the “social clubs” of world politics.⁴⁵ These clubs can be international organizations or institutions, informal and formal groups, cliques, categories, or communities. Each club has its own collective social boundaries of exclusion and inclusion that confer status on its members, and each club contains one or more status orders.⁴⁶

Clubs’ status orders determine whether war—or indeed any other form of action, practice, or item—merits recognition or not. I define these orders as sets of shared, and often tacit, assumptions by the club members about what things, practices, or reputations count as effective symbols for determining actors’ social status.⁴⁷ Given that most states participate in a range of clubs in world politics, they also adhere to an array of status orders.⁴⁸ Thus, to answer the main question of whether war increases a state's status, it is necessary to first understand how the status orders of clubs in world politics are constructed and how they influence the distribution of prestige within them.

Status orders condition actors in two ways: they define what states need to enter a club, and they dictate what club members think of as prestigious. First, to join a club, prospective members must show that they have the correct status. In the G-20, for instance, member states should be of “systemic significance” for the financial system.⁴⁹ Thus, wealth, population, regional impact, and diplomatic maneuverability are the symbols of the club's status order deemed necessary to enter.⁵⁰

Second, once in the club, the status order dictates how members may reach the club's status echelons. In the words of Max Weber, status orders are “stratification in terms of ‘honor’ and of styles of life peculiar to status groups,” meaning that they define the relevant components of confined status hierarchies.⁵¹ For example, diplomatic practices in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the UN tend to “generate notions of competence or mastery,” which in turn produce patterns of social stratification among diplomats.⁵² Thus, members need to develop competence, acquire symbols, or behave in certain ways that fit with the club's status order to move up its status hierarchy.⁵³

The criteria for entry and ascent often overlap. For instance, to join the great and superpower club during the Cold War, states needed to have nuclear weapons.⁵⁴ By the early 1950s, the United States and the Soviet Union had enough warheads for nuclear deterrence.⁵⁵ Nonetheless, both kept producing more weapons. At their respective peaks, the two superpowers’ nuclear arsenals were 300 to 400 times bigger than what they needed to fend off any adversary.⁵⁶ Thus, the goal for these states was not to deter the other club member; rather, it was to become recognized as number one in that club.⁵⁷

Status orders are important to incorporate into analyses of status and war because waging wars may not only raise or decrease a state's social status. Waging war might elevate a state's positional status in club A. But it might simultaneously lead to no status changes in club B. And it might even decrease the state's status in club C.⁵⁸ For instance, Canada's status in NATO increased when it used its aircraft to deploy U.S. nukes. But its standing in the Non-Aligned Movement dropped for the same reasons.⁵⁹ Similarly, Sweden abandoned its aspirations to join the nuclear weapons club in the 1960s in order to remain in the middle power club.⁶⁰

Status orders are social constructs. To be sure, over time they become internalized, reified, and harder to “explain away.”⁶¹ But they remain social constructs. An analytical focus centered on status orders thus offers agency to actors both inside and outside clubs. Actors have the agency to maintain or change what is considered prestigious. Members can attempt to change the status order if they see their competitors emulating them. For example, the entry criteria for the so-called “Family of Civilised States” shifted between material power and positivist international law.⁶² States in the club's status echelons could “shift the goal posts” so that ascendant states remained excluded if they only fulfilled one of these sets of criteria.⁶³

In sum, the question of whether war leads to status cannot be answered with a simple yes or no. War may be prestigious in one club and stigmatized in another. The meaning of war as a practice or symbol of status depends on the status order in which it is interpreted. Thus, scholars and practitioners should not ask whether war either increased or decreased a state's social status. Instead, they ought to ask: Where did the war lead to adjustments in status? And why did those shifts happen in those clubs? The next section builds a research design to answer these questions.

I first show how discourse analysis offers a useful method to analyze the status order in social clubs. Second, I outline the article's case selection strategy, which consists of a least likely single case study of the great power club complemented by two ancillary shadow case studies of the UN Security Council and the G-8. Third, I describe the process of operationalization in each case. Fourth, I detail the empirical data used in the analysis and the procedure for gathering, systematizing, and analyzing the collected data.

Discourse is a battle for truth.⁶⁴ Hence, discourse analysis is a method to understand clashes between different versions of truth.⁶⁵ Discourse analysts do not deny the existence of an objective reality.⁶⁶ But they suggest that objective reality is never directly available. Rather, it needs to be interpreted. And this constant interpretation of realities leads to changing the ways in which people view the world. Hence, discourse can function as a tool to legitimize, politicize, or securitize certain phenomena over others.⁶⁷ It turns migrants into security threats,⁶⁸ freedom fighters into terrorists,⁶⁹ and converts superior weapons into symbols of stigma.⁷⁰

These interpretive insights have consequences for this article. Crucially, whether war is considered prestigious in a given status order depends on the sociocultural context in which it is interpreted. From a discursive point of view, the established truth that wars generate prestige rests on salient and dominant discursive representations. In short, fighting wars only becomes esteemed if this position is reflected in the dominant representations of the discourse. The prestige of war depends on the rhetorical labor that goes into constructing it as such.⁷¹

I use discourse analysis to explore the components of status orders in three clubs: the great power club, the UN Security Council, and the G-8. In each case—and particularly in the great power club—I focus on identifying the key representations of the discourse. Representations here refer to positions within a particular discourse; that is, a specific line of argument or a particular understanding of a given phenomenon.⁷² The task of the discourse analyst is to map these truth claims, and to determine the dominant and alternative representations within a discourse. Investigating these representations offers a window into the status orders of these social clubs. For example, the section below analyzes how high-status clubs discursively responded to Russian war-making in Ukraine. The dominant representation of Russia's social status after the fighting had started will indicate how war features in each status order. Russia's war against Ukraine could propel Moscow discursively up or down the status hierarchy of a club. If so, it could be argued that war is either valued or stigmatized in this club.

Discourse thus fulfills two important functions in this article. First, discourse has productive power. The dominant representations of the discourse shape status orders and thus what actors consider prestigious within them.⁷³ For example, whether a political activist is considered a freedom fighter or a terrorist is less about individuals’ behaviors and more about the discourse surrounding them.⁷⁴ Likewise, whether war is deemed prestigious is less about its inherent destructive force and more about the discourse surrounding the fighting. Second, discourse offers an apt empirical window into status order and the status recognition of states in world politics. In contrast to other methods, such as network analysis using diplomatic exchange data, discourse analysis does not require proxies to trace the status recognition of states. Instead, discourse analysis focuses on where those status claims and concessions are actually taking place.

To understand whether fighting leads to status in world politics, I first explore how status orders affect the relationship between social status and war. To do so, the core case investigates how Russia's status vis-à-vis the great power club changed after it annexed Crimea and invaded eastern Ukraine. Second, I use two shadow cases to explore the assumption that clubs and world politics have distinct status orders. I compare the findings from the core case with how Russian war-making was received in the UN Security Council and in the G-8.

I first analyze the kind of discursive recognition that Russia received in U.S. public discourse. This approach warrants further explanation. To be sure, all members of a club act as gatekeepers for prospective candidates. Furthermore, the great powers also depend on the recognition of non–great powers to sustain their legitimacy and privileges in world politics.⁷⁵ Yet, there are two reasons why focusing only on the United States’ discursive recognition is a sound case selection strategy.

First, since the end of World War II, the United States has been the most ideologically, militarily, and economically dominant state in world politics.⁷⁶ This dominance does not mean that the United States dictates whether an outsider should become a member. But given the United States’ position and its overall recognition by the academic community as a peak great power, U.S. recognition is a necessary condition for great power status in contemporary world politics.⁷⁷ Recognition from the United States thus serves as a litmus test for great power status.

Second, discursive recognition of Russia's belligerence by the U.S. public and foreign policy elites represents a least likely case for Russian inclusion in the club. It is a hard case because the elites have little incentive to recognize Russia as a great power, given that doing so means ascribing social status—and with that potential power and influence—to a historical and contemporary adversary. Moreover, status is a scarce good. Gatekeepers of the most prestigious club in world politics—the great powers—have a strong incentive to keep potential entrants outside.⁷⁸ Thus, if Russia is conceived of in the U.S. public discourse as a great power, it means foreign policy officials will likely do the same. If these U.S. foreign policy officials recognize Russian great power status, it increases the likelihood that other established great powers would do the same.

In the second part of the analysis, I explore the assumption that clubs in world politics have distinct status orders. I analyze the recognition attributed to Russia in the UN Security Council and the G-8 after the annexation and invasion. These clubs represent the functional expression of great power status.⁷⁹ The focus of the analysis is on the status order of the great power club. The UN Security Council and the G-8 offer useful comparisons to the status order of the great power club. Crucially, if discursive recognition of Russia is similar in both these clubs and the great power club, it weakens my argument that clubs have distinct status orders. Conversely, if these clubs’ discursive recognition of Russia differs from that of the great power club, it strengthens the argument that clubs have distinct status orders.

The article's research design is not intended to provide a sole explanation for status change within these clubs. There are many paths to prestige, after all, and covering them all is beyond the scope of this article. Thus, while I make a concerted effort to understand how Russia's status changed, my analysis is not an exhaustive explanation.

The distinct organizational structures in the three clubs means that the type of discourse differs in each case. Members of socially distant clubs, like the great power club, rarely meet. They do not have a fixed group of representatives, and their duties and privileges are not inscribed in statutes enforced by a protocol department. Thus, the discourse produced on the club's status order is decentralized.⁸⁰ Conversely, members of socially proximate clubs like the UN Security Council have close and regular interaction with one other. Here, the discourse is centralized and structured in and around representatives of the council.⁸¹ In clubs that are on a spectrum between distant or proximate, such as the G-8, the status order of the club is upheld by a mixture of centralized and decentralized discourse.

For the great power club, I rely on editorials and op-eds on great power status in five major newspapers in the United States. This bottom-up approach challenges some mainstream assumptions in the literature. Most approaches assume that state leaders are vested with the authority to bestow recognition upon other states. Moreover, leaders base their decisions to recognize other states on their first-hand perceptions of such states.⁸² This conventional approach obscures the process leading up to whether leaders decide to recognize or not to recognize another state. Crucially, this decision—like any other foreign policy decision—is a complex process. It is the result of international pressures and dynamics as well as domestic concerns and priorities.⁸³ To be sure, the president of the United States has considerable authority to bestow recognition upon another state. Yet, the decision depends on the broader discourses found within and outside the United States.

Opinion pieces offer a window into those discourses that reflect, condition, and enable what foreign policy practitioners can say and do. Of course, editorials and op-eds are often written by political and cultural elites who are sometimes out of touch with the broader public opinion. Nevertheless, I rely on newspaper opinions because they offer insights into the discourse that became accepted as common sense. These editorials and op-eds reflect dominant narratives, and as such they “represent the boundaries of legitimate American views of the global scene.”⁸⁴ It is still true that foreign policy practitioners can bestow recognition on other states. But the broader public discursive space conditions what is socially possible to say or do.⁸⁵

To be clear, this kind of discourse analysis cannot predict that foreign policy leaders will or will not recognize Russia or any other nation as a great power. In fact, most discourse analysts are inherently skeptical of predictions. Indeed, as Kenneth Waltz famously claims, structural theories cannot explain “why state X made a certain move last Tuesday.”⁸⁶ Structural approaches are never deterministic. Yet, in both neorealism and discourse analysis, structure (whether material or discursive) can push or discourage certain behaviors.

Although I do not offer predictions, I do show that the public discourse is likely to have a strong effect on how U.S. leaders and practitioners speak and act in the world. Even though it is physically possible for practitioners of the United States to utter “Malta is a great power,” such a statement has no root in the rhetorical truism about what great powers are.⁸⁷ Thus, someone who claims that Malta is a great power will face ridicule. The claim is socially impossible. Hence, it is unlikely that leaders or practitioners will ever label Malta a great power. In other words, these commonsense discursive representations found in the broader public discourse “set the boundaries of what actors can legitimately articulate in public, what they can collectively (though not individually) imagine, and what is politically possible.”⁸⁸

Instead of covering all U.S. narratives about Russia in my analysis of the great power club, I show how the U.S. public discourse makes sense of Russian belligerence. Moreover, I illustrate how this sense-making relates to the status order of the great power club. This discourse in turn constrains and reflects the possible ways in which foreign policy practitioners can interact with Russia and the great power club and its status order.⁸⁹

For the two shadow cases, I collected and analyzed a different type of discourse. For the socially proximate UN Security Council, I collected and analyzed two types of data among the permanent representatives to showcase the club's status order. First, I collected transcripts of official open council meetings between ambassadors and looked for statements that indicated a rise or decrease in Russian status because of its actions in Ukraine. Second, I conducted interviews with former and current ambassadors and diplomats to the UN or the UN Security Council. The aim for the interviews was to understand the informal discourse about Russia's actions among permanent representatives and how it aligned with the formal discourse. The second shadow case, the G-8, is neither a socially distant club nor a socially proximate one. Although the membership composition and rules of the club are not as firm as in the UN Security Council, they are not as loose as in the great power club. For this club, the leaders’ discourse and statements about the Russian annexation and invasion were most unequivocal before, during, and after planned summits.

To understand how U.S. public discourse framed Russian belligerence, I rely on op-eds and editorials from 2010 to 2019 in five newspapers: the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. I used three criteria to select these newspapers. First, their political inclinations are spread across the political spectrum.⁹⁰ Second, these newspapers are among the ten outlets with the largest circulations in the United States. Third, the sampled newspapers feature long-standing, reputable foreign policy opinion sections.

Drawing on the academic literature on great powers, I developed a list of terms used to describe overlapping categories of the great power club.⁹¹ I searched the ProQuest database of U.S. major dailies from January 1, 2010, to July 15, 2019, to construct my corpus.⁹² This initial search yielded 11,158 editorials and op-eds.⁹³ I screened each piece and completely read those that were relevant for the topic.⁹⁴ The total study sample was 544 opinion pieces. I then coded each piece using the following four criteria: (1) which club or group it referred to; (2) the time reference;⁹⁵ (3) whether Russia was positively or negatively compared with the club; and (4) which other states were associated with the club. I used this coded material to get an overview of the discourse and to understand which representation was dominant at a given time. I then used this overview to map and layer the discursive representation of Russia's status vis-à-vis the great power club.

For the first shadow case, the UN Security Council, I gathered and analyzed twenty-nine verbatim transcripts of the open council meetings on Ukraine and Crimea from 2014 to 2019. I put special emphasis on the fifteen meetings held in 2014. Next, using snowball sampling, I conducted a total of six in-depth interviews with current and former ambassadors and diplomats to the UN Security Council or the UN. In the analysis I refer to all interviewees as “diplomats” because they preferred to remain anonymous.

For the second shadow case, the G-8, I conducted a focused newspaper search in LexisNexis on Russia and each of the G-8 members and their representatives. The aim was to capture the reactions coming from leaders and top foreign policy practitioners inside the club. I conducted the search from 2013 to 2020 to capture the immediate reaction to the Russian annexation and invasion, as well as President Donald Trump's attempts to re-include Russia to the G-7 summits.

In the rest of this article, I put this research design to work. First, I analyze the discursive representations of Russia's standing vis-à-vis the great power club according to U.S. newspaper opinion articles. Second, I analyze the immediate and long-term discursive reactions from the UN Security Council and the G-8 following the Russian war-making in Ukraine.

On February 23, 2014, the Kremlin-supported Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown by the Ukrainian Parliament after weeks of public protest in Kiev. In the midst of the Ukrainian crisis, Russian special forces occupied Crimea, claiming that it protected Russia's access to the Black Sea. The Russian forces seized control of the Crimean legislature and installed a pro-Russian prime minister. On March 11, the Supreme Council of Crimea and the Sevastopol City Council declared independence from Ukraine. Five days later, the region held a referendum to join the Russian Federation.

Russia also stirred political protest movements in eastern Ukraine. From February to May of 2014, the movement became a violent conflict between pro-Russian separatists backed by Moscow and the Ukrainian Army. In a replay of the Crimean annexation, pro-Russian militia overtook government buildings across eastern Ukraine. Separatists in Luhansk and Donetsk declared their independence from Ukraine in May.

Two representations dominated the U.S. public discourse on Russia's status leading up to the Crimean annexation and invasion of eastern Ukraine. The first representation centered on Russia's lost superpower status. This representation focused on the sharp temporal divide between the former communist superpower and the current disgruntled Russian regional power. Commentators said that the loss of wealth, population, and power meant that President Vladimir Putin's wish to regain status would prove futile.⁹⁶ “Stripped of its possessions,” one commentator noted, “the Soviet Empire has been rolled back and has morphed into a Russia with a wounded ego.”⁹⁷ The representation described a broken state spearheaded by a leader desperately clinging to the hope of restoring Russia's former glory. For example, commentators said that the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) served to boost Russia's vanity. Russia could use it “to bolster its withered status as a superpower,” said a Washington Post editorial.⁹⁸ Likewise, columnist George Will argued that the treaty benefited Russia's need for “psychotherapy,” given that it “longs to be treated as what it no longer is, a superpower.”⁹⁹ Ilan Bernan called the New START “an exercise in arms control as psychiatry” for a Russia that “still suffers from an acute post-imperial hangover.”¹⁰⁰ Russia was ridiculed as a “pretend post-Soviet Superpower”¹⁰¹ and a state “in pursuit of a superpower status that [it] has irretrievably lost.”¹⁰² Any engagement with the United States, be it via Russia's support for Bashar al-Assad or meetings in the G-8, was to “cultivate the domestic illusion that Russia remains a great power [emphasis added].”¹⁰³

The second representation maintained that Russia was still a disruptive and potentially dangerous second-tier power. This representation built on the material realities of the mid-2000s. The Russian economy had stabilized,¹⁰⁴ Putin had consolidated and centralized political power, and Russia was gradually reemerging as a military power.¹⁰⁵ For example, commentators portrayed Russia as a pivotal “major power” or “world power” broker along with China, the European Union (EU), France, Germany, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States.¹⁰⁶ Additionally, indebted to its BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) membership, Russia was labeled an “emerging power”¹⁰⁷ and a “rising power” when grouped together with China.¹⁰⁸ Furthermore, the representation also depicted Russia as a “nuclear superpower.” Russia was seen as capable of playing a distinctive role in world politics despite it not having any other symbols associated with great or superpower status. For instance, Leon Aron suggested that the United States must prepare for “any truculence” and “any destabilizing developments in the world's other nuclear superpower.”¹⁰⁹

Thus, the representation suggested that Russia was a force to be reckoned with. But the narrative also made clear that the United States was the only (fully fledged) superpower in the world; that is, China was a “rising” major power, Russia was in “decline,” and the United States was a stable hegemon.¹¹⁰ The emphasis on unipolarity in this discursive representation is also notable. Other major powers existed. But none posed a symmetrical threat to the United States. In an op-ed for the New York Times, former U.S. diplomat and president of the Council on Foreign Relations Richard Haas argued: “The United States faces no great-power rival. And this is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future…. None of the other major powers of this era—China, Russia, Europe, Japan, India—are tempted to challenge the United States for primacy. America's per-capita gross domestic product is at least six times that of China, and the United States spends more on defense than the next 10 countries combined [emphasis added].”¹¹¹

Taken together, these two dominant representations painted a picture of a Russia desperate to restore a lost empire in order to rejoin the great power club. This narrative also had an underlying, ridiculing tone—a tone underlining how impossible, ludicrous, and farfetched such aspirations were. By mid-2013, Russia was seen as a global player in world politics. But any prospect of being seen as a member of the great power club seemed unrealistic.

During and after Russia annexed Crimea and invaded Ukraine, a new revived empire representation replaced the lost superpower representation. Both representations built on Russia's history as a previous great power and superpower. Yet, the lost superpower representation drew a sharp line between contemporary Russia and its historical imperial great power status. In contrast, the new revived empire representation drew a direct parallel between contemporary Russia and the Russian and Soviet empires. In December 2013, two Wall Street Journal editorials, for instance, said Putin's aim was “to drag Kiev into his own trade and political bloc as he tries to reconstitute a Russian empire.”¹¹²

The link between the Russian empire and the “new” empire was discursively established by presenting Putin as a prospective czar. Former ambassador Robert J. Callahan said Putin was “an eager successor to the czars and commissars [who] seeks to re-create the Russian empire, buffer states and all.”¹¹³ Similarly, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman argued that Putin sought to “restore Russia's czarist empire”¹¹⁴ and to establish “the same ‘sphere-of-influence’ that Russia had in Central Europe in the days of the czars.”¹¹⁵ Furthermore, in an op-ed on the tug-of-war between the EU and Russia over Ukraine, Friedman rhetorically connected the Russian empire and contemporary Russia:

The first unified “Rus” state was born in Kiev, when “St. Vladimir the Great, the Grand Prince of Kiev,” unified all the tribes and territories in the region into an entity called by historians “Kievan Rus.” … Now fast-forward 1,000-plus years, and you have another “Vladimir the Great”—Mr. Putin—massing troops on Ukraine's border to re-establish Russia's influence here. Putin recently hinted that it might be time for him to reclaim “Novorossiya” or New Russia, which is how a region of southeastern Ukraine was referred to by the czars in the 19th century, when it was part of Russia. So when Putin says New Russia, he really means Old Russia—a Russia that used to dominate Ukraine.¹¹⁶

Friedman's argument sets the tone for a sizable group of articles under the revived empire representation. Commentators saw Russia's actions as moves that Russia believed would revive an empire. Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote that Ukraine was “the linchpin for Vladimir Putin's dream of a renewed imperial Russia.”¹¹⁷ Other commentators and editorials stated that Putin either “position[ed] contemporary Russia as the heir to the Russian empire”¹¹⁸ or was trying “to regain a lost empire,”¹¹⁹ “to construct a 21st-century version of the Soviet empire,”¹²⁰ or to cobble “together as much of the old Soviet empire as he [could].”¹²¹ The revived empire representation ridiculed Russia's new imperialism. New York Times columnist Ross Douthat claimed that Putin's dream of empire “seems far out of his reach, and what's closer to his grasp is something more destructive—a wrecker's legacy, not Peter the Great's, in which his own people gain little from his efforts, but the world grows more unstable with every move he makes.”¹²²

Senator John McCain was even more critical. McCain characterized Putin as “an unreconstructed Russian imperialist,” and further claimed that Putin's “regime may appear imposing, but it is rotting inside. His Russia is not a great power on par with America. It is a gas station run by a corrupt, autocratic regime.”¹²³

Yet the revived empire discursive representation also contained concern that the annexation might lead Putin closer to establishing a new empire and achieving great power status. During the annexation of Crimea, some voiced opinions that if Ukraine and Europe were to stop Russia, Putin would have to give up on any dreams of a revived empire. “Without Ukraine,” a Wall Street Journal editorial in December 2013 claimed, “Russia can't become a new empire.”¹²⁴ Two months later, the same newspaper was gloomier about the prospects of stopping Russia. Two successive editorials argued that without Ukraine “a new Russian empire is impossible,”¹²⁵ but a Ukraine under Moscow's control would represent “a revived Russian empire if Mr. Putin has his way.”¹²⁶ In the words of Walter Russell Mead, “With Ukraine, Russia can at least aspire to great power status and can hope to build a power center between the EU and China that can stand on something approaching equal terms with both. If, on the other hand, the verdict of 1989 and the Soviet collapse becomes final, Russia must come to terms with the same kind of loss of empire and stature that Britain, France, and Spain have faced. Mr. Putin's standing at home will be sharply, and perhaps decisively, diminished.”¹²⁷

The faction expressing concern about the arrival of a new Russian empire became stronger after the Russian annexation of Crimea. The narrative focused less on the utopian idea of an empire and more on a plausible scenario that Russia could become one. Some argued that the military response by the West was lacking. A Wall Street Journal editorial in mid-March 2014 claimed that Putin might “figure he's better off seizing more territory now and forcing the West to accept his facts on the ground. All the more so given that his domestic popularity is soaring as he seeks to revive the 19th-century Russian empire [emphasis added].”¹²⁸ The combination of a successful annexation from Moscow's perspective and a United States–NATO standoff meant that the onset of a new Russian empire became more pressing in the discourse. A Chicago Tribune editorial argued that “Crimea has been lost,” urging Europe to focus on making “it a painful acquisition for Putin, and signal that his ambitions for a greater Russian empire can go no further.”¹²⁹ The representation thus shifted toward a realization that “czarist Russia … is reemerging and has in Vladimir Putin an ambitious warden.”¹³⁰

From April to September 2014, the public narrative centered on limiting the expansion of a Russian empire instead of ridiculing the idea. Mead said that only “power keeps or can keep Russia from rebuilding its old empire and pushing forward into the former Warsaw Pact states.”¹³¹ The narrative urged the West to prevent Moscow from annexing another state. Doing so would be “the next front in Russia's efforts to rebuild its lost empire.”¹³² Anne Applebaum even urged the United States to “begin to reinforce the local police forces of the states that border the new Russian empire [emphasis added].”¹³³ Applebaum's remark signifies a broader trend within the discourse. By the end of 2014, what was once a ridiculed dystopian idea of a new Russian empire had become reality. Moreover, Russia's imperial moves were also increasingly seen as conducive for achieving great power status.

Parallel to the revived empire narrative was the “rivaling greats” representation. The latter established an even stronger link between belligerence and great power status. Unlike the revived empire representation, the rivaling greats narrative avoided ridiculing Russia's dream of higher status. Instead, the representation centered on the new security environment between the United States and Russia. Because of Russia's annexation of Crimea, the representation highlighted an antagonistic dyad between two great powers.

Throughout 2014, the rivaling greats representation focused on Russia's belligerence in Ukraine. But it also scolded the Barack Obama administration for not responding proportionally. According to a Washington Post editorial, “President Obama has led a foreign policy based more on how he thinks the world should operate than on reality.” In Obama's vision, “invasions, brute force, great-power games and shifting alliances—these were things of the past…. Unfortunately … Russian President Vladimir Putin has not received the memo on 21st-century behavior.”¹³⁴ Similarly, the Wall Street Journal criticized Obama for dismantling the U.S. nuclear deterrent and suggested that the Russian belligerence provided “daily reminders that the great-power rivalries of previous centuries are far from over.”¹³⁵ A few days later, the Wall Street Journal editorial again lashed out at Obama, suggesting that he “didn't run for President to engage in great power politics, but it is still part of the job description.”¹³⁶

Throughout 2014, the representation became more adamant about Russia's prospective entrance to the great power club. On March 9, 2014, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned of a great power confrontation between Russia and the United States in a Washington Post op-ed. Rice wrote that while the United States and Europe have tried to convince Russia that Ukraine “should not be a pawn in a great-power conflict … Putin has never seen it that way,” because he views Russia as in “a zero-sum game for the loyalty of former territories of the empire.” The invasion and possible annexation of Crimea, Rice claimed, “is his answer to us.”¹³⁷ Rice thus connected the onset of a great power conflict with Russia to the revived empire representation and the annexation of Crimea, arguing that war-making is a way for Russia to become recognized as a great power. In the wake of Russia entering the Syrian civil war, Rice—along with former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates—was even more explicit about Russia's ascent to the great power club:

Putin's move into Syria is old-fashioned great-power politics. (Yes, people do that in the 21st century.) There is a domestic benefit to him, but he is not externalizing his problems at home. Russian domestic and international policies have always been inextricably linked. Russia feels strong at home when it is strong abroad—this is Putin's plea to his propagandized population—and the Russian people buy it, at least for now. Russia is a great power and derives its self-worth from that. What else is there? When is the last time you bought a Russian product that wasn't petroleum? Moscow matters again in international politics, and Russian armed forces are on the move [emphasis added].¹³⁸

The rivaling greats representation remained widespread in the U.S. public foreign policy discourse in the years that followed. But it became the dominant discursive representation at the end of Trump's first year as president. On December 18, 2017, the Trump administration launched its National Security Strategy.¹³⁹ The document traditionally outlines the United States’ major national security concerns and how the executive branch intends to handle them. The document sparked extensive debates about U.S. foreign policy, building on the already established rivaling greats discursive representation: “After being dismissed as a phenomenon of an earlier century, great power competition returned. China and Russia began to reassert their influence regionally and globally. Today, they are fielding military capabilities designed to deny America access in times of crisis and to contest our ability to operate freely in critical commercial zones during peacetime. In short, they are contesting our geopolitical advantages and trying to change the international order in their favor [emphasis added].”¹⁴⁰ The document further stated that “Russia seeks to restore its great power status and establish spheres of influence near its borders” and that “with its invasions of Georgia and Ukraine, Russia demonstrated its willingness to violate the sovereignty of states in the region.”¹⁴¹

In the wake of the publication of the National Security Strategy, most of the major newspapers published editorials that addressed the renewed great power competition.¹⁴² Commentators began using “great power competition” to justify their opinions beyond Ukraine. Former Ambassador to NATO Victoria Nuland wrote an op-ed ahead of the Helsinki meeting between Trump and Putin, arguing that the U.S. president “can make American diplomacy great again if he demonstrates to Mr. Putin that normal relations with us require civilized global behavior by Russia. The alternative—a NATO in tatters and a re-energized Mr. Putin—would leave America weaker and Mr. Trump the loser in the great power competition he himself has initiated.”¹⁴³ Senator Jon Kyl and former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell urged that “nuclear weapons must continue to maintain their deterrent effect” when the government mindset shifts “to a return of great power competition with Russia and China.”¹⁴⁴ Similarly, former CIA Director David Petraeus and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse wrote in the Washington Post that because Russia had weaponized “corruption as an instrument of foreign policy,” the fight against it “has become a strategic one—and a battle ground in a great power competition.”¹⁴⁵ And New York Times columnists Thomas Friedman and David Brooks wrote that the era of great power rivalry is coming back.¹⁴⁶ The vocal involvement of Russia and the United States in the 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis led Mead to label it the “first major crisis of this new era of great-power competition.”¹⁴⁷ It also prompted former NATO Ambassador Ivo Daalder to refer to it as a “site of great power conflict between the United States on one side and Russia, China and Iran on the other.”¹⁴⁸

China's entry to the great power club boosted Russia's status ascent.¹⁴⁹ The rivaling greats narrative focused on China and Russia as a collective antagonist “Other.” Three developments framed this discursive othering of Russia and China. First, Russia and China share overlapping club memberships. Both were nuclear weapons states¹⁵⁰ and members of the G-20, the P5 (permanent members of the UN Security Council),¹⁵¹ and the BRICS,¹⁵² and they were grouped in the rising power club.¹⁵³ Second, the narrative focused on Russia and China's combative illiberalism and authoritarianism. For example, Fareed Zakaria asked how the order that the United States built could be ensured to “continue, even as new powers—such as China—rise and old ones—such as Russia—flex their muscles?”¹⁵⁴ Third, the discursive othering of Russia and China as a defiant duo was also helped by the increasing cooperation between the two states. As Ali Wyne argued, “Russia is a declining power with regional, perhaps continental, ambitions. China is a rising power with global ambitions. Russia's quest for great-power status rides partly on the perception that it enjoys a privileged alliance with Beijing. China, meanwhile, regards Russia as one of an ever-growing array of countries eager to furnish it with vital commodities. Russia is important but not indispensable.”¹⁵⁵

The stronger relationship between Russia and China fed into the rivaling greats narrative. Under this representation, any mistrust that Russia and China shared was superseded by common opposition to the United States. The “budding partnership between these two great powers—who were riven for decades by high levels of mistrust—is a natural response to the adversity and confrontation in the U.S.-Russian relationship,” Alexander Gabuev wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.¹⁵⁶

By 2019, the rivaling greats representation had become normalized in the public discourse on U.S. foreign policy. The depiction of the contemporary security climate dominated by great power antagonism produced symmetry between Russia and the United States. The idea of a poor, weak, and resentful post-Soviet regional power—prominent in the early 2010s lost superpower representation—was replaced by an idea of Russia that competed on equal terms with the great power United States and the new great power China.¹⁵⁷ In writing about the demise of the liberal international order, Mead argued: “Great powers like Russia and China never liked this approach, seeing it as a thinly disguised form of U.S. hegemony and a threat to their illiberal political systems.”¹⁵⁸ Other op-eds referred to China and Russia as “great powers,”¹⁵⁹ “great power rivals,”¹⁶⁰ “authoritarian great powers,”¹⁶¹ or “rising great powers.”¹⁶² By the end of the 2010s, the consensus among commentators was that Russia had arrived in the great power club.¹⁶³

Before I analyze the status effects of Russia's war against Ukraine in other clubs in world politics, I consider two rival explanations for Russia's entry into the great power club. First, Russia's rise to great power standing could be a function of its increase in power during the 1990s and 2000s. Table 1 presents three measures of capabilities as a share (percentage) of major power capabilities: gross domestic product, military expenditures, and national power capabilities. Three factors facilitated the representation of Russia as a second-tier major power with considerable influence in world politics: (1) Russia's military expenditures rose during the period; (2) Putin centralized and consolidated power; and (3) Russia maintained its large nuclear arsenal.¹⁶⁴ But the change in overall distribution of capabilities is too small to exhaustively explain the increasing recognition of Russia's great power status during the period. As table 1 shows, the size of Russia's economy and overall national power capabilities remained only a fraction of those of the United States and China during the measured period. The timing of Russia's entry into the great power club suggests that the war against Ukraine—and not material capabilities—was the immediate cause of increased status recognition as a great power.

The second rival explanation for Russia's entry into the great power club is that Russia was involved in multiple wars when it gained this status, not just when it annexed Crimea and invaded eastern Ukraine. In fact, Russia has not stopped fighting since it first became a state in 1991. In particular, its intervention in the Syrian civil war boosted the perception in the public discourse of an emerging great power.¹⁶⁵ Even though Russia's participation in the Syrian civil war helped construct an antagonistic “Other” to the United States, the Ukrainian war had an even stronger effect. It was the annexation of Crimea and subsequent invasion of eastern Ukraine that engendered associations with Russian imperial behavior.¹⁶⁶ This imperial behavior was in turn the narrative foundation for the discursive recognition of Russia as a great power.

In sum, the annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine are not a monocausal explanation for the increased recognition of Russia as a great power during the 2014–2019 period. Russia would not be considered as a potential entrant to the club had it not possessed sufficient material capabilities. And Russia's overall belligerence contributed to the idea of a resurgent and antagonistic great power rival. Nevertheless, I contend that Russia's actions in Ukraine were the immediate cause of the increasing rhetorical recognition in U.S. foreign policy discourse of Russia as a member of the great power club.

Annexing Crimea and invading eastern Ukraine meant that Russia was increasingly conceived of as a great power in the U.S. public discourse. Thus, the status order of the great power club values belligerence. A key theoretical argument of this article is that status orders differ from club to club. War might be positively received in one club but stigmatized in another. What consequences did the war have for Russia's standing in other clubs of world politics? To answer the question, I analyze the discourse on Russian status within the UN Security Council and the G-8. I show that Russia's status remained stable in the UN Security Council because of established legal privileges and the UN Security Council's interest in cooperating with Russia on other issues. In the G-8, there were no such established legal privileges or interest in working on other issues. Thus, Russia was thrown out of the club because it violated the club's shared rules, values, and order. In sum, the status outcomes for Russia in these three clubs diverged. This finding strengthens the theoretical claim that clubs in world politics have distinct and sometimes diverging status orders.

In 2014, Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that reaffirmed Ukraine's territorial integrity.¹⁶⁷ But the veto did not deter the UK, the United States, and France (the P3, collectively) from condemning Russia's actions.¹⁶⁸ In 2014, the council met fifteen times to discuss the developments in eastern Ukraine and Crimea. According to one diplomat, the P3 strategy for these meetings was to “expose Russian lies and hypocrisy.”¹⁶⁹ Throughout the sessions, the P3 ambassadors stigmatized Russia within the UN Security Council. Ahead of the annexation, the French ambassador said, “Russia will gain Crimea and lose its credibility.”¹⁷⁰ And when Russia tries to return to its foundations and restore the credibility of Russian diplomacy, the French ambassador continued, “it will be met with nothing but sarcasm and a shrug.”¹⁷¹ The British ambassador argued that in the “twenty-first century, no country should be acting with such blatant disregard for international law,” suggesting that Russia's “political and economic reputation have already suffered” following the annexation.¹⁷² The P3 viewed the annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine as disrupting the international order, which warranted consequences for Russia's standing within the UN Security Council.

Despite the P3's efforts, however, Russia's status within the council at large remained stable. The main reason for this stability is that Russia's social status within the council is closely connected to its legal status privileges as a P5 country with veto rights.¹⁷³ In the words of one diplomat, “the P5 are at the top of the pecking order in any way you cut it…. The system is set up in a way … [that] if you want the system to work you have to engage with the P5.”¹⁷⁴ This tiered status system makes it necessary for the UN Security Council members to compartmentalize their tasks. On the one hand, Russia needs the council to work to preserve the esteem associated with being a permanent member.¹⁷⁵ As one diplomat noted, given that Russia's “permanent membership is at the absolute heart of their big power status,” it would simply not “be in the interest of Russia to freeze the rest of business or whatever was happening outside Ukraine.”¹⁷⁶ On the other hand, the other members of the council need to include Russia to get other things done. As the diplomat recalled, “even though we were hammering Russia on Ukraine in the morning, the Security Council was still conducting other business in the afternoon.”¹⁷⁷ While Russia's status inside the council did not increase, Russia's fixed privileges and the members’ joint interest in cooperation meant that its status within the council remained relatively stable.

The Russian occupation and March 2014 referendum on the status of Crimea drew immediate criticism from the members of the G-8. But unlike the UN Security Council, the G-8 sanctioned Russia. On March 2, 2014, the leaders of the seven other members issued a joint communiqué condemning Russia's “clear violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” which also contravened “the principles and values on which the G7 and the G8 operate.”¹⁷⁸ Consequently, the other seven members suspended their participation in the scheduled G-8 summit in Sochi, Russia, in June.¹⁷⁹ “You just don't in the 21st Century behave in 19th Century fashion by invading another country,” said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. “If Russia wants to be a G8 country, it needs to behave like a G8 country,” he continued.¹⁸⁰

After the annexation, the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, the UK, and the United States, threatened Russia with permanent exclusion from the club. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said that the exclusion was a way to harm Russia's status: “A regime does not spend $50-billion on the Olympics if it does not care about its international reputation.”¹⁸¹ On March 24, the seven states issued a joint statement announcing that “Russia's actions in recent weeks are not consistent” with the rest of the group's “shared belief and shared responsibilities,” which led them to suspend their “participation in the G-8 until Russia changes course.”¹⁸²

During the summit in Quebec in June 2018, Trump launched a bid to let Russia back in, suggesting that the G-8 was “a more meaningful group than the G7.”¹⁸³ But Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that readmittance was “not something we are even remotely looking at.”¹⁸⁴ German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that readmitting Russia could not happen unless “substantial progress in regard to the problems with Ukraine” was made.¹⁸⁵ Two years later, President Trump again invited President Putin to the G-7 summit at Camp David.¹⁸⁶ And again the G-7 members pushed back. Trudeau said that Russia was excluded because it invaded Crimea, and its disrespect of international rules and norms was why it “will continue to remain out.”¹⁸⁷ Unlike with the UN Security Council, the G-8 had a clear mechanism to cause harm to Russia's status within the club: exclusion. The violation of Ukraine's sovereignty was not in line with the club's “values,” “principles,” “shared responsibilities,” and “like-minded” members who were dedicated “to the rule of law.”¹⁸⁸

In sum, the core case and the two shadow cases show three variations in outcome. Despite all being high-status clubs, the analysis supports my theory that status orders govern what is considered prestigious in a club. Russian war-making in Ukraine propelled Russia toward becoming a member of the great power club. In contrast, it had no effect on Russia's standing within the UN Security Council, and it diminished Russia's club status within the G-8. These three cases show that the status orders in clubs of world politics vary enough to potentially cause diverging individual status effects for the same kind of action.

In February 2022, Russia launched a new stage in the war against Ukraine. A full-scale invasion replaced the hybrid war that Russian-supported militias had been fighting in eastern Ukraine since 2014. Leaders and experts, including Putin himself, expected Kiev to fall within a matter of days.¹⁸⁹ It did not. After Russia's successive defeats in Ukraine, experts have argued that its immoral actions, combined with its poor military performance, mean that its standing in world politics would drop.¹⁹⁰ On the basis of the findings in this article, I would advocate for more tentative predictions. First, Russia's status has not uniformly decreased across the international system. Wars do not either increase or decrease a state's social status because there is no all-encompassing status hierarchy in world politics. The invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea caused different status effects in the great power club, in the G-8, and in the UN Security Council. Clubs containing different status orders are thus likely to respond differently to the current stage of the Ukraine war.

Second, military blunders do not necessitate status loss. One of my core arguments in this article is that—contrary to popular belief and amid the noise of condemnation—successful wars can generate recognition in certain clubs. Conversely, the ineffective use of force could harm Russia's status as a great power. For example, the Soviet Union's failed war in Afghanistan and subsequent 1989 withdrawal contributed to its loss of superpower status.¹⁹¹ In contrast, the United States retained its superpower status following its loss in the Vietnam War.¹⁹² And while the Suez crisis caused reputational damage to the UK, it is still considered a great power.¹⁹³ Moreover, even if Russia were to lose its great power status given its poor military performance in Ukraine, it is likely to be represented as a second-tier power within the foreign policy discourse. Key status symbols, such as nuclear weapons, ensure a position not too far below the great power club.

Third, initial reactions are a poor indication of a state's long-term status recognition as a great power. The 2014 annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine were immediately met with ridicule, moral upheaval, and strong criticism in the U.S. foreign policy discourse. The rivaling greats representation only became dominant years after the initial annexation of Crimea. Thus, while Russia's military may have suffered a reputational loss after it launched its full-scale war against Ukraine in 2022, it is too soon to conclude that it is no longer a great power because of its actions.

In this article, I have explored under which conditions war can lead to higher social status in world politics. To do so, I developed a theory of status orders, which are shared assumptions about what counts as prestigious in a given social club of world politics. I argued that different clubs in world politics have distinct status orders, and that war and aggression might be ways for states to gain higher status if the relevant status order values belligerence.

I used discourse analysis as a method of analysis to explore status orders and their components. Using the U.S. public discourse as an analytical window, I conducted a single case study of the great power club to understand how status orders affect the relationship between social status and war. To explore the assumption that clubs in world politics have distinct status orders, I analyzed the discourse in the core case with two ancillary shadow case studies: the UN Security Council and the G-8. I argued that if the type of status recognition in the UN Security Council and the G-8 differs from that in the great power club, it increases the confidence that the esteem of war depends on the status order in which it is interpreted.

The 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine shifted the U.S. public discourse. Over time, this discourse labeled Russia as a disgruntled and disillusioned regional power, then as a resurgent imperial power, and then increasingly as a great power rival. Whether a planned status move or not, Russia's annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine was viewed by the U.S. public as in line with the status order of the great power club. In contrast, Russia's status remained stable in the UN Security Council because of established legal privileges and the council's joint interest in cooperating with Russia on other issues. But these two factors were not relevant to the status order of the G-8, and thus that club ejected Russia for violating its shared rules, values, and order.

These findings are consequential for the future study of status in international relations. First, the effective use of force is a central component of the status order of the great power club. Although public elites in the United States condemned and criticized Russia's annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine, they simultaneously recognized that such moves elevated Russian's standing vis-à-vis the great powers. Second, an act of war can have divergent status effects depending on the audiences. Waging war against Ukraine raised Russia's status in the great power club, demolished it in the G-8, and caused little change within the UN Security Council. Thus, the often-mentioned statement that war either elevates or diminishes states’ status, without specifying in which clubs the status change occurred, is logically invalid. Third, if the type of status order decides whether states get status from fighting, the consequence is that status orders also determine the type of recognition that states receive from other actions. Any type of foreign policy action or behavior, of which war-making is one example, affect multiple audiences that are likely to respond to the act in different ways. Incorporating analyses of social clubs’ status orders is thus crucial for understanding the recognition that a state receives for its actions.

There are five key caveats for these findings. First, war should not be seen as an exhaustive explanation for Russia's changed status in the three clubs that I analyze in this article. I have shown that Russia's standing vis-à-vis the great power club improved because of fighting. But other political, economic, and military factors might have facilitated or indirectly influenced this change. Moreover, China has already arrived in the great power club without having to fight. This juxtaposition reinforces the point that there are many paths to prestige. This article has sought to illuminate one of those paths.

Second, not all wars may represent a path to prestige. UN-led peacekeeping missions are fundamentally different than hybrid warfare and annexations. Hence, these forms of war and the ways that they are conducted should produce different status effects in different clubs. Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 was effective and precise, resulting in few battle deaths and symbolizing the military superiority of the state. This outcome, in turn, strengthened the idea that Russia belonged in the great power club. In contrast, Russia's ineffective, full-scale invasion of Ukraine beginning in 2022 is not likely to benefit Russia's status as a great power.

Third, the annexation and hybrid warfare proved successful for Russia's bid for great power status. But other states may not achieve the same result for similar actions. The discourse on Russia's actions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine was rhetorically connected to Russia's past; that is, the Russian empire, the Soviet Union, and the state's former great power and superpower status.¹⁹⁴ Countries that do not share the same great power history as Russia, such as Brazil or India, would arguably not achieve the same results if they were to take similar military actions.

Fourth, acquiring great power status is not the same as receiving higher status. The two shadow cases in this article have illustrated this dynamic well. Emulating Russian belligerence runs the risk of a state being barred or ejected from or having its standing decrease in other clubs of world politics.

Fifth, and perhaps most important, even though the status order of the great power club seems to positively recognize war, this is not set in stone. If my theoretical assumptions of status orders and discourse are correct, then a wide range of actors may have agency to change the status order of the club. To change dominant representations of the discourse is no easy feat. But it is possible. Highlighting the conducive and perhaps problematic relationship between the great power club and war may enable doing something about it. It is my opinion that leaders and practitioners, along with public and political elites and even academics, have agency to shift this discourse.¹⁹⁵

Beyond the empirical findings, I believe that the analytical framework developed and applied in this article applies to cases not covered here. The most logical step forward would be to explore the status recognition of new or established great powers. It would be particularly intriguing to trace Chinese discursive recognition of other major powers. This would make it possible to gauge whether these rhetorical moves of inclusion and exclusion correspond to those of the United States. The study cases could also be expanded beyond Russia and belligerence. According to U.S. public discourse, China has already arrived as a great power. Future research might trace the exact timing for this recognition. It could also determine what that discursive recognition was based on. Finally, a comparative analysis of members and potential entrants to the club (e.g., Brazil, China, Germany, India, Japan, and Russia) or potential declining great powers (e.g., France and the UK) would determine the membership composition of the club and could shed light on the different aspects of the status order beyond that of a single case study.

The analytical framework in this article is also applicable to other informal and formal clubs of world politics, ranging from the BRICS to the middle powers to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to the African Union. The exact technique for analyzing these clubs’ respective status orders might differ from the approach applied here. I have argued that discourse offers a useful analytical window to explore status orders. But other interpretive methodologies such as ethnography or practice theory offer equally well-suited alternatives to study the situated status dynamics unfolding in various clubs of world politics.¹⁹⁶

For invaluable feedback, comments, and critique on various iterations of this article, the author thanks Paul Beaumont, Chiara de Franco, Tanja Marie Hansen, Peter Viggo Jakobsen, Vincent Keating, Erik Ringmar, Anastasia Kriachko Røren, Olivier Schmitt, Ole Jacob Sending, Michael J. Shapiro, Ayqe Zarakol, former colleagues at the Center for War Studies at the University of Southern Denmark, and the anonymous reviewers. The author also thanks the diplomats who agreed to be interviewed for this article. The research for this article was supported by the Carlsberg Foundation under the project Gatekeeping the Great Power Club (GREATKEEP).