‘Russia has turned into a global pariah’

"Russia has become a global pariah," says Giulio Gallarotti, professor of government and environmental studies at Wesleyan University and adjunct professor of political science at Columbia University, at the end of his interview with Kathimerini. Analyzing his thoughts on the war in Ukraine, he looks back to the academic classrooms where theories of geopolitics and international relations are studied. He invokes the "power curse" theory, which points out that the powerful tend to underestimate their opponent, just as Goliath underestimated David. The diachronicity of this paradigm finds its basis in the current war scene in Ukraine.

How is "power" defined and how has it evolved over time?

Power is defined as the influence a nation wields in the international system. I write about "soft" and "smart" power as alternatives to traditional visions of power...