aaus-list @ ukrainianstudies.org -- [aaus-list] Fwd: Article on Eurasia

[Vera Andrushkiw <vandrushkiw@usukraine.org>]

AAUS Members,

I am forwarding this article for your information.

Vera

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>Ideologue of Empire
>By Ilan Berman
>Wall Street Journal Europe
>November 3, 2005
>
>
>Chances are, you've never heard of Alexander Dugin. In the U.S. and 
>Europe, the soft-spoken Russian political philosopher is still very much a 
>marginal figure. But within Russia itself, the 43-year-old strategist has 
>become an influential political force. And, increasingly, his radical 
>ideas about a reconstituted, anti-Western empire are making their mark on 
>Russian foreign policy.
>
>Mr. Dugin's political past is mired in controversy. During the 1980s, he 
>reportedly worked as an archivist for the KGB, where he was exposed to, 
>and influenced by, the ideas of the early "Eurasianists" -- Russian 
>thinkers like Lev Gumilyov who, in the early 1900s, had modernized and 
>popularized the idea of Russia's historical  destiny as an empire. A 
>one-time fascist, Mr. Dugin joined forces with controversial 
>writer/activist Eduard Limonov in the early 1990s to form the National 
>Bolshevik Party (NBP), using it as a platform to advocate a "conservative 
>revolution" pitting Russia against the West.
>
>By the late 1990s, however, Mr. Dugin had broken with Mr. Limonov and the 
>NBP in pursuit of a more puritan political approach. In 1997, he gained 
>prominence with the publication of his seminal work, "Osnovy Geopolitike" 
>(The Foundations of Geopolitics) -- a rambling, 924-page treatise 
>advocating the re-creation of an anti-Western Russian empire. In it, Mr. 
>Dugin postulated thaat Russia and the U.S. are destined for global 
>confrontation, and proposed a series of alliances through which Russia can 
>achieve international dominance.
>
>Since then, Mr. Dugin has begun putting these principles into practice. In 
>2000, he created "Eurasia," a socio-political movement dedicated to the 
>revival of the art of geopolitics -- and to the idea of a "Greater Russia" 
>stretching from the Middle East to the Pacific. Not surprisingly, the 
>group's heady ccocktail of mysticism, religious symbolism and good 
>old-fashioned political partisanship found more than a few takers among 
>Russians disenchanted with their country's second-rate economic and 
>political status. (Today, according to Mr. Dugin, his movement boasts some 
>25,000 members in Russia and its so-called "near abroad," many of them 
>current and former members of the Russian intelligence services and 
>military.) Two and a half years later, Mr. Dugin's ideas were formally 
>entrenched in Russian political discourse with the chartering of his 
>"Eurasia Party," a political faction deeply supportive of Russian 
>President Vladimir Putin's foreign policy line.
>
>Over the years, Mr. Dugin's influence has ebbed and flowed with the 
>currents of Russian foreign policy. Before September 11th, his ideas about 
>multipolarity and anti-Americanism were very much in vogue in the 
>corridors of the Kremlin, with Mr. Dugin reportedly serving as an 
>unofficial adviser to a number of important Russian defense officials and 
>diplomats. But in the wake of the terrorist attacks on New York and 
>Washington, Mr. Dugin's star waned. Against the counsel of many in Moscow, 
>President Putin rallied to the side of the United States, supporting the 
>war on terror and the U.S. offensive against the Taliban and al Qaeda in 
>Afghanistan.
>
>Gradually, however, Mr. Dugin's philosophy has resurfaced, buoyed by a 
>wave of renewed nationalist sentiment and imperial impulses. In the 
>aftermath of the U.S.-led campaign against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, 
>Washington's cooperation with Moscow has cooled, and the Kremlin has 
>reverted to old habits. In the Middle East, in line with Mr. Dugin's 
>dictums, the Russian government is stubbornly nurturing its nuclear 
>contacts with Iran, as well as expanding arms supplies to the beleaguered 
>regime of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. In Asia, Moscow is drifting closer 
>to China in a strategic partnership that Mr. Dugin has praised as an 
>"alliance... in the heart of Eurasia." And in Central Asia and the 
>Caucasus, the Kremlin is gravitating toward an increasingly hostile, 
>anti-American foreign policy stance, nervous over the recent democratic 
>transformations that have taken place in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.
>
>Mr. Dugin, for his part, is seizing the moment. The philosopher has 
>provided much-needed intellectual cover for this summer's landmark 
>Russian-Chinese military maneuvers, which have elicited serious worries in 
>the West. This type of aggressive military cooperation is only natural, 
>Mr. Dugin explains, because both countries are threatened by the recent 
>Ukrainian, Georgian and Kyrgyz "color revolutions" -- and by the perceived 
>"American connection" to these transformations.
>
>Mr. Dugin has also thrown his weight behind Moscow's efforts to oust 
>American influence from the "post-Soviet space." "A new strategic bloc is 
>taking shape before our eyes," he recently wrote with admiration in the 
>newspaper Vedomosti. "The Americans are firmly resolved to continue their 
>policy in Eurasia," and "Russia's salvation" lies with the Shanghai 
>Cooperation Organization, a Moscow- and Beijing-led regional anti-Western 
>alliance encompassing many of the former Soviet republics.
>
>At home, meanwhile, Mr. Dugin is channeling his energies toward the 
>mobilization of various nationalist forces. In recent weeks, his Eurasia 
>movement has spearheaded the rapprochement of various ethnic and political 
>groups in Russia and the near abroad. The goal, according to Mr. Dugin, is 
>the creation of a sweeping "Anti-Orange" political front aimed at 
>confronting the new, pluralistic and pro-Western governments in Ukraine 
>and Georgia -- and of preventing similar democratic inroads in an 
>increasingly authoritarian Russia.
>
>As these maneuvers suggest, Mr. Dugin's vision is xenophobic, 
>antidemocratic and deeply anti-Western. Alarmingly, it also appears to be 
>gaining serious ground in Putin's Russia, where authoritarian drift and 
>opposition to the U.S. are again becoming the order of the day.
>
>Mr. Berman is vice president for policy at the American Foreign Policy 
>Council in Washington.