Foundations of Geopolitics

geopolitical book

The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia is a geopolitical book by Aleksandr Dugin. It has had a large effect with the Russian military, police and the people decide how the Russia deals with other countries.[1] It has been used as a textbook in the Academy of the General Staff of the Russian military.[1][2] The book was published in 1997. It was well liked in Russia. Because of the book powerful Russian politicians have taken an interest in Dugin.[3] He was a Russian Eurasianist, fascist,[4] and nationalist. [5] Dugin has formed a close relationship with Russia's Academy of the General Staff.[6]

The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia
AuthorAleksandr Dugin
Original titleОсновы геополитики (геополитическое будущее России) / Osnovy geopolitiki: geopoliticheskoe budushchee Rossii
CountryRussia
LanguageRussian
PublisherArktogeja
Publication date
1997
ISBN978-5-8592-8019-3

Dugin has said that General Nikolai Klokotov of the Academy of the General Staff helped him write the book. [7] Klokotov says this is not true.[2]Colonel General Leonid Ivashov helped write the book.[8]

Klokotov said that the book would "serve as a mighty ideological foundation for preparing a new military command".[9] Dugin has said that the book has been used as a textbook in many Russian schools.[1] Former speaker of the Russian State Duma, Gennadiy Seleznyov has "urged that Dugin's geopolitical doctrine be made a compulsory part of the school curriculum".[9]

Content

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In Foundations of Geopolitics, Dugin says that the United States should not have any effect on Eurasia. He wants Russia to rebuild its power through annexations and alliances.[2]

The book says that "the battle for the world rule of Russians" has not ended. It also say that Russia is still "the staging area of a new anti-bourgeois, anti-American revolution". The Eurasian Empire will be built "on the fundamental principle of the common enemy: the rejection of Atlanticism, strategic control of the USA, and the refusal to allow liberal values to dominate us."[9] Military operations are not a large part of his plan. The textbook says subversion, destabilization, and disinformation should be used. They should also use Russia's gas, oil and other natural resources to pressure other countries.[9]

Reception and impact

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Historian Timothy D. Snyder wrote in The New York Review of Books that Foundations of Geopolitics is influenced by the work of Carl Schmitt. Scmitt was a supporter of a conservative international group whose work influenced the Nazis. He also said that Dugin's was important in getting people to talk about the iideas of Eurasianism and National Bolshevism.[10]

In 2017, news.com.au said that the book "reads like a to-do list for Putin's behaviour on the world stage".[11]

References

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  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Dunlop, John B. (2004-07-30). "Russia's New—and Frightening—"Ism"". Hoover Institution. Retrieved 2017-10-12.
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 "The Unlikely Origins of Russia's Manifest Destiny". Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on 2016-07-27. Retrieved 2017-10-23.
  3. Liverant, Yigal (Winter 2009). "The Prophet of the New Russian Empire". Azure (35). Jerusalem: Shalem Center. ISSN 0793-6664. Retrieved 2015-04-06.
  4. "Classification of Dugin as a fascist is justified, regardless of the fact that today the MGU professor frequently speaks not as a primitive ethnocentrist or biological racist. (...) By «fascist» we understand the «generic» meaning of the concept, used in comparatory research of contemporary right-wing extremism by such well-known historians-comparativists as Alexandr Galkin (Moscow), Walter Laqueur (Washington), Stanley Payne (Madison), Wolfgang Wippermann (Berlin) or Roger Griffin (Oxford)", Андреас Умланд (22 June 2012). ""Евразийские" проекты Путина и Дугина – сходства и различия" [Putin and Dugin's "Eurasian" projects − similarities and differences]. Geopolitika (Lithuania). Retrieved 31 August 2015.
  5. Koposov, Nikolay (October 13, 2017). Memory Laws, Memory Wars. Cambridge University Press. p. 211. ISBN 9781108419727.
  6. Lavelle, Peter (2003). Uncovering Russia (excerpt: A civil society without civility). Norasco Publishing Ltd. pp. 379–380. ISBN 0972970800.
  7. Firth, Charles (March 4, 2017). "1990s Manifesto outlining Russia's plans is starting to come true". news.com.au. Retrieved 12 October 2017.
  8. Mankoff, Jeffrey (October 17, 2011). Russian Foreign Policy: The Return of Great Power Politics. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 69–70. ISBN 9781442208261.
  9. 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Dunlop, John (January 31, 2004). "Aleksandr Dugin's Foundations of Geopolitics" (PDF). Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization. 12 (1). Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (George Washington University): 41. ISSN 1074-6846. OCLC 222569720. Archived (PDF) from the original on 7 June 2016. Retrieved 5 March 2022.
  10. Snyder, Timothy (20 March 2014). "Fascism, Russia, and Ukraine". The New York Review of Books. Archived from the original on 2016-01-27. Retrieved 5 September 2014.
  11. "This is what Russian heavyweights wanted in the '90s". NewsComAu. Retrieved 2017-10-23.

Other websites

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