Aspirations to Great Power Status: Russia’s Path to Assertiveness in the International Arena under Putin

This article focuses on the literature developed in the last few years on Russia’s foreign policy by exploring six books which can be thought as representative: two general books on Russian foreign policy, one that focuses on security and intervention, another on Russia’s soft power and influence in the post-Soviet space, and two others on Russia’s relationship with the West. There is an underlying idea in the six books that Russian foreign policy has been deeply marked by Putin’s leadership. Russia’s foreign policy has been continuously evolving since 2000 towards assertiveness, through which Putin has aimed to regain Russia’s lost status of being a great power. In the last few years and especially since Putin came to power for the third time, there has been a proliferation of books on Russian foreign policy. The value of the six books lies in the way they chart the path towards assertiveness in Putin’s quest to put Russia again on the map as a great power.