[ben_w]

Russia stopped being a superpower with the fall of the USSR. And before anyone says so, "has a permanent seat on UN security council" doesn't count, the UK and France also have that status and even combined were no longer superpowers by the time of the Suez crisis. Likewise "has nukes" is not sufficient.

The EU is closer to being one than Russia is today, and even then the EU is only kinda a bit of one in some measures but not all.

[SirMaster]

Why does every source I can find list Russia as a superpower?

[ben_w]

To hazard a guess: because Google et al think you're the kind of person who clicks that kind of source.

When I search for list of superpowers, I get superheroes — obviously nobody on Marvel or DC is going to be listed as having "Russia" as their superpower, but this does illustrate what it is that search engines do these days, and it's not objective truth.

[SirMaster]

When you search for a list of superpowers? I mean did you not simply include the word countries?

Do you have a good authoritative source that lists the superpower countries that does not include Russia?

[ben_w]

> When you search for a list of superpowers? I mean did you not simply include the word countries?

Sure, but also in writing this reply, "cia superpower list" to see if they had anything "authoritative" got me CIA's paranormal research: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00792r000...

> Do you have a good authoritative source that lists the superpower countries that does not include Russia?

In most cases, the statement I see is that the USA is "the", singular, superpower. So none of my sources are lists.

What counts as a "good authoritative source", for you? And when?

Samuel P. Huntington was highly rated in his day, but "The Lonely Superpower" was 1999: https://web.archive.org/web/20060427150630/http://www-stage....

RAND I think still are, and this was 2019, "Russia Is a Rogue, Not a Peer; China Is a Peer, Not a Rogue": https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE310.html

Is nationalinterest.org "authoritative"? "What Happens When America Is No Longer the Undisputed Super Power?", 2020: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/what-happens-when-ameri...

I could link to Wikipedia, which says of Russia "potential" superpower (along with the EU, China, and India), not currently an extant superpower. But that's not what I'd call "authoritative".

And this is the point where I got that link to the CIA's paranormal research. The CIA's World Factbook doesn't even describe the USA as a "superpower", at least not at the time of writing: https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/united-stat...

[SirMaster]

You are proving my point…

If you can’t find an authoritative source of who is a superpower then how can you confidently claim who isn’t?