Author | Aleksandr Dugin |
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Original title | Основы геополитики |
Country | Russia |
Language | Russian |
Publisher | Arktogeja |
Publication date | 1997 |
ISBN | 978-5-8592-8019-3 |
This article is part of a series on |
Eurasianism |
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The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia is a geopolitical book by Aleksandr Dugin. Its publication in 1997 was well received in Russia; it has had significant influence within the Russian military, police, and foreign policy elites, [1] [2] and has been used as a textbook in the Academy of the General Staff of the Russian military. [1] [3] Powerful Russian political figures subsequently took an interest in Dugin, [4] a Russian political analyst who espouses an ultranationalist and neo-fascist ideology based on his idea of neo-Eurasianism, [5] who has developed a close relationship with Russia's Academy of the General Staff. [6]
Dugin credits General Nikolai Klokotov of the Academy of the General Staff as co-author and his main inspiration, [7] though Klokotov denies this. [3] Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, head of the International Department of the Russian Ministry of Defence, helped draft the book. [8]
Klokotov stated that in the future the book would "serve as a mighty ideological foundation for preparing a new military command". [9] Dugin has asserted that the book has been adopted as a textbook in many Russian educational institutions. [1] Former speaker of the Russian State Duma, Gennadiy Seleznyov, for whom Dugin was adviser on geopolitics, [10] "urged that Dugin's geopolitical doctrine be made a compulsory part of the school curriculum". [9]
The book may have been influential in Vladimir Putin's foreign policy, which eventually led to the 2014 advent of the Russo-Ukrainian War, and its expansion with the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. [11] [12]
Eurasianist sentiments have been on the rise across Russian society since the ascent of Vladimir Putin in the country. In a poll conducted by Levada Center in 2021, 64% of Russian citizens identify Russia as a non-European country; while only 29% regarded Russia to be part of Europe. [13]
In 2023, Russia adopted a Eurasianist, anti-Western foreign policy strategy in a document titled "The Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation" approved by Vladimir Putin. The document defines Russia as a "unique country-civilization and a vast Eurasian and Euro-Pacific power" that seeks to create a "Greater Eurasian Partnership" by pursuing close relations with China, India, countries of the Islamic World and rest of the Global South (Latin America and Southern Africa). The policy identifies United States and other Anglo-Saxon countries as "the main inspirer, organizer and executor of the aggressive anti-Russian policy of the collective West" and seeks the end of geopolitical American dominance in the international scene. The document also adopts a neo-Soviet posture, positioning Russia as the successor state of USSR and calls for spreading "accurate information" about the "decisive contribution of the Soviet Union" in shaping the post-WWII international order and the United Nations. [14] [15] [16]
In Foundations of Geopolitics, Dugin makes a distinction between "Atlantic" and "Eurasian" societies, which means, as Benjamin R. Teitelbaum describes it "between societies whose coastal geographical position made them cosmopolitan and landlocked societies oriented toward preservation and cohesion". [17] Dugin calls for the "Atlantic societies", primarily represented by the United States, to lose their broader geopolitical influence in Eurasia, and for Russia to rebuild its influence through annexations and alliances. [3]
The book declares that "the battle for the world rule of Russians" has not ended and Russia remains "the staging area of a new anti-bourgeois, anti-American revolution". The Eurasian Empire will be constructed "on the fundamental principle of the common enemy: the rejection of Atlanticism, strategic control of the U.S., and the refusal to allow liberal values to dominate us." [2] [9] Dugin seems not to rule out the possibility of Russia joining and/or even supporting EU and NATO instrumentally in a pragmatic way of further Western subversion against geopolitical "Americanism".
Outside of Ukraine and Georgia, military operations play a relatively minor role except for the military intelligence operations Dugin calls "special military operations". The textbook advocates a sophisticated program of subversion, destabilization, and disinformation spearheaded by the Russian special services. [18] The operations should be assisted by a tough, hard-headed utilization of Russia's gas, oil, and natural resources to bully and pressure other countries. [9] The book states that "the maximum task [of the future] is the 'Finlandization' of all of Europe". [9]
In Europe:
In the Middle East and Central Asia:
In East and Southeast Asia:
The book emphasizes that Russia must spread geopolitical anti-Americanism everywhere: "the main 'scapegoat' will be precisely the U.S."
In the Americas, United States and Canada:
Hoover Institution senior fellow John B. Dunlop stated that "the impact of this intended 'Eurasianist' textbook on key Russian elites testifies to the worrisome rise of neo-fascist ideas and sentiments during the late Yeltsin and the Putin period". [1] Historian Timothy D. Snyder wrote in The New York Review of Books that Foundations of Geopolitics is influenced by the work of Carl Schmitt, a proponent of a conservative international order whose work influenced the Nazis. He also noted Dugin's key role in forwarding the ideologies of Eurasianism and National Bolshevism. [19]
The book was described by Foreign Policy as "one of the most curious, impressive, and terrifying books to come out of Russia during the entire post-Soviet era", and "more sober than Dugin's previous books, better argued, and shorn of occult references, numerology, traditionalism and other eccentric metaphysics". [3] In 2022, Foreign Policy also noted: "The recent invasion of Ukraine is a continuation of a Dugin-promoted strategy for weakening the international liberal order." [20] According to Anton Shekhovtsov, the book's cover contains a depiction of a Chaos Star, a symbol that represents chaos magick in modern occult movements, and the use of the symbol aligns with Dugin's general interest in the occult and occult symbolism. After the publication of the book, Dugin has also used the symbol as the logo of his Eurasia Party. [21]
Geopolitics is the study of the effects of Earth's geography on politics and international relations. While geopolitics usually refers to countries and relations between them, it may also focus on two other kinds of states: de facto independent states with limited international recognition and relations between sub-national geopolitical entities, such as the federated states that make up a federation, confederation, or a quasi-federal system.
The Eurasia Party is a National Bolshevik Russian political party. It was registered by the Ministry of Justice on 21 June 2002, approximately one year after the pan-Russian Eurasia Movement was established by Aleksandr Dugin.
Aleksandr Gelyevich Dugin is a Russian far-right political philosopher.
The Symbol of Chaos originates from Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné stories and their dichotomy of Law and Chaos. In them, the Symbol of Chaos comprises eight arrows in a radial pattern.
Neo-Stalinism is the promotion of positive views of Joseph Stalin's role in history, the partial re-establishing of Stalin's policies on certain or all issues, and nostalgia for the Stalinist period. Neo-Stalinism overlaps significantly with neo-Sovietism and Soviet nostalgia. Various definitions of the term have been given over the years.
Mateusz Andrzej Piskorski is a far-right Polish politician and publicist.
Eurasianism is a socio-political movement in Russia that emerged in the early 20th century under the Russian Empire, which states that Russia does not belong in the "European" or "Asian" categories but instead to the geopolitical concept of Eurasia governed by the "Russian world", forming an ostensibly standalone Russian civilization.
Russian nationalism is a form of nationalism that promotes Russian cultural identity and unity. Russian nationalism first rose to prominence as a Pan-Slavic enterprise during the 19th century Russian Empire, and was repressed during the early Bolshevik rule. Russian nationalism was briefly revived through the policies of Joseph Stalin during and after the Second World War, which shared many resemblances with the worldview of early Eurasianist ideologues.
Sergey Alexandrovich Karaganov is a Russian political scientist who heads the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, a security analytical institution founded by Vitaly Shlykov. He is also the dean of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at Moscow's Higher School of Economics. Karaganov was a close associate of Yevgeny Primakov, and has been Presidential Advisor to both Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin. He is considered close to Putin and Sergey Lavrov.
Leonid Grigoryevich Ivashov is a Russian military and public official. He is a former President of the Academy for Geopolitical Problems and a retired Colonel-General.
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Conspirology is a term the Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin coined in his work Konspirologiya: Nauka o zagovorah, tajnyh obshhestvah i okkultnoj vojne. Accordingly, it is a framework which studies conspiracy theories, secret societies, and their geopolitical conflicts, from the perspective of esoteric thought, non-Catholic eschatology, demonology, and the occult,as opposed to religious studies. Dugin primarily uses it to cover the conflict between what he considers to be Atlanticism and Eurasianism.
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After unsuccessful interventions in post-Soviet party politics, Mr. Dugin focused on developing his influence where it counted — with the military and policymakers. With the publication in 1997 of his 600-page textbook, loftily titled 'The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia,' Eurasianism moved to the center of strategists' political imagination. In Mr. Dugin's adjustment of Eurasianism to present conditions, Russia had a new opponent — no longer just Europe, but the whole of the 'Atlantic' world led by the United States.
In his magnum opus, 'The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia,' published in 1997, Dugin mapped out the game plan in detail. Russian agents should foment racial, religious and sectional divisions within the United States while promoting the United States' isolationist factions. In Great Britain, the psy-ops effort should focus on exacerbating historic rifts with Continental Europe and separatist movements in Scotland, Wales and Ireland.
Occult symbolism plays another important role in Dugin's ideological imagery. The eight-arrow star that became an official symbol of Dugin's organisation had first appeared on the cover of Osnovy geopolitiki, posited in the centre of the outline map of Eurasia. Misleadingly identified by Ingram as a swastika, this symbol is a modified 'Star of Chaos' and can be presumed to refer to 'Chaos Magick', an occult doctrine based on the writings of Crowley, Austin Osman Spare and Peter Carroll.