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]
Policy usage
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]
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.[11]
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".[15] 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-Americanrevolution". 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 the European Union 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. The textbook advocates a sophisticated program of subversion, destabilization, and disinformation spearheaded by the Russian secret services.[16] 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]
Latvia and Lithuania should be given a "special status" in the Eurasian–Russian sphere, although he later writes that they should be integrated into Russia rather than obtaining national independence.[9]
Belarus and Moldova are to become part of Russia, not independent.[9]
Poland should be granted a "special status" in the Eurasian sphere. This may involve splitting Poland between German and Russian spheres of influence.[9]
Ukraine (except Western Ukraine) should be annexed by Russia because "Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning, no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness, its certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics". Ukraine should not be allowed to remain independent, unless it is cordon sanitaire, which would be inadmissible according to Western political standards. As mentioned, Western Ukraine (comprising the regions of Volynia, Galicia, and Transcarpathia), considering its Catholic-majority population, are permitted to form an independent federation of Western Ukraine but should not be under Atlanticist control.[9]
The book stresses the "continental Russian–Islamic alliance" which lies "at the foundation of anti-Atlanticist strategy". The alliance is based on the "traditional character of Russian and Islamic civilization".
Iran is a key ally. The book uses the term "Moscow–Tehran axis".[9]
Armenia has a special role: It will serve as a "strategic base," and it is necessary to create "the [subsidiary] axis Moscow-Yerevan-Teheran". Armenians "are an Aryan people ... [like] the Iranians and the Kurds".[9]
Dugin envisions the fall of China. The People's Republic of China, which represents an extreme geopolitical danger as an ideological enemy to the independent Russian Federation, "must, to the maximum degree possible, be dismantled". Dugin suggests that Russia start by taking Tibet–Xinjiang–Inner Mongolia–Manchuria as a security belt.[1] Russia should offer China help "in a southern direction – Indochina (except Vietnam), the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia" as geopolitical compensation.[9]
Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States and Canada to fuel instability and separatism against neoliberal globalist Western hegemony, such as, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists" to create severe backlash against the rotten political state of affairs in the current present-day system of the United States and Canada. Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social, and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics".[9]
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."[18] 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.[19]
^ abBurbank, Jane (22 March 2022). "The Grand Theory Driving Putin to War". The New York Times. New York City. Retrieved 23 March 2022. 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.
^Shekhovtsov, Anton (2008-12-01). "The Palingenetic Thrust of Russian Neo-Eurasianism: Ideas of Rebirth in Aleksandr Dugin's Worldview". Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions. 9 (4): 491–506. doi:10.1080/14690760802436142. ISSN1469-0764. S2CID144301027. 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.
