This week, Gallup released "Rating World Leaders: What People Worldwide Think of the U.S., China, Russia, the EU and Germany," the first-ever Gallup report on global public opinion about these major world powers. 

Is the UK's role on the world stage a decades-long story of managed decline, including the orderly withdrawal from a once vast empire? Or is it the story of a medium-sized power whose standing in the world reflects the new global reality?