Quote Originally Posted by Outlaw
AP---outside of them holding nuclear weapons and having intercontinental ballistics missiles and outside of being a raw resource provider of two resources and he know how raw resource only countries have in the past developed, we have seen them block the attempts on Syria, blocked the attempts on getting an Iranian agreement, not having fulfilled the OSCE disarmament agreements they signed, and violating the Reagan signed INF, now the Crimea and now eastern Ukraine., and in the past Georgia and Moldavia.
A basic component in IR theory is the 'spoiler', which is the role Russia is playing given its (increasing) alienation from the West combined with its resurgent capabilities. IR is about relative power, and this is the most effective strategy for Russian to challenge the U.S. Historically what has kept Russia (or the USSR) together was its military power and centralized political control. Quantitatively, Russia is #2 behind the U.S. in military power and #10 economically. For those reasons, I think it's a mistake to ignore or dismiss Russia. And - as you mentioned - it has a large stockpile of nuclear weapons.

I've made the argument before that I do not think Russia qualifies as a 'traditional' Westphalian nation-state. Instead, I think Russia is better politically defined as an imperial system. In an imperial system, a political center dominates the subordinate peripheries without regard to ethnicity, nationality, etc. Principles of the Westphalian system such as territorial integrity and political sovereignty are not norms within the imperial paradigm. I think that goes a long way in explaining the vastly difference perceptions between Washington and Moscow.

A provocative question turning around the question---does in fact the world need Russia? If so for what and why?
What do you mean by "the world"?